


A Broken Star

by CaekDaemon



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Gen, Invasion, Multi, Pre-Canon, Valyrian, Westerosi Freehold, dragon - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 04:00:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 28,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5319659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaekDaemon/pseuds/CaekDaemon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a time four hundred years before the rule of King Robert Baratheon and a century before the beginning of Aegon's Conquest, Westeros is a land divided, it's wealth and power split amongst a dozen petty kings squabbling amongst themselves like quarreling children, old families fighting over old quarrels, but across the waters of the Narrow Sea the Valyrian Freehold stirs, turning its eyes upon the wealth and weakness of the Sunset Kingdoms and gathering strength for its greatest conquest yet. In between stand the Targaryens of Dragonstone, fleeing a doom foreseen by one of their own, the Freehold has given them command of the first wave of the invasion, an army made up of young men and women eager to prove themselves to their elders and earn glory for their families at home, yet it is not so easy to avoid fate, and the young have always been the most open to new ideas and new experiences...</p><p>But above all, shall the lands of Westeros be a kingdom...or, perhaps, a republic?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Aegon I

****  
**A Broken Star**  
**Dragonstone, 103 years before Aegon's Conquest...**  


Aegon Targaryen swallowed hard at the sight of the black wings circling over the island fortress of Dragonstone, the dark shadows of half-a-hundred dragons dancing across the ground as the riderless beasts soared amongst the skies and rested upon the mountain's top in the unbearable heat of the volcano's summit, challenging one another for dominance in great shows of fire and flame, even coupling with one another whenever they found a mate amongst the clouds. But even more eye catching than the display of Valyria's might in the skies were the thousands of ships in the bay, and the hundreds of tents and banners rippling in the winds coming on off the Narrow Sea.  _Gods...there must be a dragon from every family in Valyria here..._  
  
Flying low and close to the mountainside was one of their dragons; she was small and fast, years away from being fully grown, perhaps one of the smallest amongst the dragons gathered at the island fortress, but she was  _his_  all the same, born within the walls of Valyria itself before his grandfather decided to take them away from the capital city at the recommendation of his own mother. She was named for the goddess of the hunt that represented her so well, one of the fourteen gods of the Freehold that had been worshipped since before the first Valyrians had found the very first dragons inside the mountains of the Fourteen Flames, and he was certain that the little Balerion would be a dragon worthy of legend...once she had finished growing, of course.  _And that'll take so long that I'll probably be dead when it happens._  
  
He turned and walked back into the castle of seamless black stone, taking a mantle of thick black cloth bearing the three headed red dragon of his family and fastening it around his shoulders - his father was with all the other dragonlords inside of the Chamber of the Painted Table, no doubt, planning the invasion that had been so difficult to even get off of the ground in the first place. Valyria was the greatest realm in the world, feared and respected in lands as far away as Asshai and Yi Ti for their unstoppable armies and dreaded dragons, but Valyria had not lasted five thousand years by being a wildfire that devoured everything around it, no, the armies of Valyria had always marched at their own pace, the Freehold growing slowly and only when the lands they already held were safe and secure...but once the Freehold was committed to expand, there was not a force in the world that could stop them from taking whatever they willed.   
  
But this was not an official time of expansion, no, the Lords Freeholder at Valyria were...indecisive as to whether the Freehold should expand, or whether they should wait another decade and see if the situation had changed.  _Which truly means to wait till people have forgotten the issue was ever raised at all...the old Freeholders know that keeping things the same favors them the most, since it means they don't have to share as much power._    
  
He sighed, then inspected himself once in the mirror of polished silver before heading out of his chambers and into the castle's halls as he made his way towards the Painted Table. Even inside the fortress's heart, he could still hear the sounds of the dragon's roaring against one another, the deep rumbling echoing through the air and making the smooth walls tremble. Servants - both those who were slaves and those who were not - hurried through the passageways carrying wine and blankets and all the other things that would be needed to provide for their guests, but he ignored them all, passing them by till he saw the guards standing at the sides of the great door of solid oak that marked the entrance into the chamber, the men nodding respectfully as he passed them by and entered the room, hearing the seasoned voice of his father's most trusted bodyguard, Daemon Qoherys, long before he could see him as his eyes adjusted to the much brighter chamber.   
  
"...whilst the North is a vast land, as big as the rest of the kingdoms combined," Daemon said as he circled the table, the old soldier fully dressed for battle in a suit of good scalemail, wearing the colors of the family he so loyally served and never taking his hand from the pommel of his sword. "But they are poor lands, as hardened by winter as the people who live there. They know the terrain well, and they know how to make best use of it. Should we invade, they'll have us chasing them around the North for years, all whilst killing our scouts and waiting for winter to finish us off."  
  
His father, Gaemon Targaryen, nodded understandingly from the head of the table, a great cloak of black and red fastened around his shoulders by two sigils of black metal, forged from the same Valyrian steel as the ruby-encrusted circlet that adorned his head and showed his rank. "We'll be leaving them for later on in the campaign, once the Lords Freeholder are willing to give us enough coin and manpower to finish the conquest."  
  
Low murmurs spread around the room, talking about the lack of support from the homeland, the risks of proceeding with so few men to hold territory with and the ever present danger of simply running out of money to fuel the conquest...and that's when he noticed the faces of all the other dragonlords and that none of them were older than his thirty and six year old father, with the eldest looking as if he was barely three years older than Aegon himself and certainly no more than twenty and five, whilst most of them were younger, some were even just boys of three and ten...and there were even a few women there, too, spare daughters without brothers to marry who had managed to bond with dragons of their own and were ready to fight.  
  
"I'm sure a few mangy barbarians couldn't pose much of a threat," said the eldest of the dragonlords with a smile so confident it bordered on blind arrogance, stepping towards the table and letting Aegon see his black and white scalemail and the bejeweled breastplate placed atop, not a single scratch on it. "How dangerous could they be?"  
  
"Common last words," Daemon muttered under his breath.  
  
"They might not have dragons, Vaeherys," his father said sternly, "But that makes them no less a threat. We cannot let our advantages turn to overconfidence, lest we blind ourselves with it and wander right into a trap."  
  
Vaeherys sighed in annoyance, crossing his arms beneath his cape and showing the white wyrm on black that was the symbol of the most powerful family of Qohor.  _He must be Aurion's son..his family is one of the most powerful in the Freehold, and he knows it too._  
  
"I still see no reason why we shouldn't launch an attack on the Northmen at the same time as we do the southrons," Vaeherys said with a flail of his wrist towards the lands north of the Neck. "My father could provide us with enough men to finish the war in a heartbeat, and as soon as the rest of the Freehold see that we're winning they'll hurry over to take as much as they can. What matter is it, if the Northmen continue to hold out for a few weeks longer?"  
  
"You've missed the point entirely, Vaeherys," said another, a young woman with a Valyrian steel sword held over her shoulder and dressed from neck to heel in purple, a golden dragon with its wings unfurled above her beating heart, and there was not a part of her that did not seem like that of a warrior, from her disciplined stance to the flawlessness of her armor. "We're meant to be doing this  _ourselves._  The rest of the Freehold is watching us, and they want to see if this invasion is worth the resources put into it. If we do well and win enough land and take enough plunder to make it worthwhile,  _then_  they'll follow us and send more troops to finish the conquest and to hold what we've taken."  
  
"We're the first wave," Aegon added with understanding and a small smile. "We'll be the first ones to fight, so we'll have to break the Westerosi when they're at their strongest, but we're the ones who'll have the chance to win the greatest glories and win the most lands, too. How many of us are there in the invasion force?"  
  
"Forty thousand," said Daemon loudly, his voice being carried to the corners of the room for all to hear. "Twenty thousand citizen soldiers and ten thousand more without full rights, with two thousand freeholders on horseback and some eight thousand auxiliaries; a mix of mounted scouts and light cavalry, siege engineers and skirmishers."  
  
_This'll be the greatest army to have ever set foot in Westeros, and it'll be unstoppable with our dragons to support it._  
  
"Taking territory with our dragons will be easy," his father said, looking towards the Painted Table. "But we lack the numbers for long term commitments other than garrisons. Should you get bogged down at any point in the campaign, fall back and wait for reinforcements. Don't let them draw you out of a good defensive position; time is on  _our_  side, not theirs."  
  
"The Lord Freeholder is correct," Daemon added with a nod, "Once the conquest is underway, it'll be all too tempting to try and conquer the entire continent with what we have, but to try and hold everything is to hold nothing."  
  
"So we must limit our conquests?" asked another dragonlord, a man who was closer to Aegon's own age than not, but he was still a little younger, perhaps six and ten years of age at most. "What's the point of even being here, if we have to hold back?"  
  
"It's not about holding back," Aegon countered as he gestured towards the table, "We just have to make sure what we take is safe before going onto something else, and make sure we don't end up giving them a chance to overwhelm us. That's all."  
  
"That makes sense," said another dragonlord, one who was so young as to still be more of a boy than a man, his cheeks and chin covered in the barest bristles of a beard beginning to grow. He leaned towards the table eagerly, as if watching the campaign unfold already and seeing the glories he might yet win. "So, when do we start?"  
  
"Today, if the winds are favorable," his father stated calmly, watching the young dragonlords and ladies smiling at their chance to win lands and titles of their own. "You are all here because your families believe that you might better serve their interests and the Freehold by being a part of this campaign. I expect each and every one of you to prove them right or to die in the attempt. Now, go make whatever preparations you might need, for we leave at noon."  
  
As soon as the words had left his father's lips the crowd began to thin, with Vaeherys being the first to leave, quickly followed by most of the others, men and women leaving to pray to the Fourteen, heading to the blacksmiths and armories to have their equipment checked one last time or to the camps to make sure their men were ready for battle, or whatever else they might do on the eve of the largest invasion in Valyrian history. He turned to follow, to see his sweet sister-wife one last time before donning his armor and leaving for the port, but the woman from before stopped besides him and spoke, resting the tip of her blade against the ground.  
  
"I think I'm going to gut him," she said quietly.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Vaeherys," she said instantly, narrowing her eyes as she looked down the hall. "I haven't once seen a man who was so far up his own arse before. He is one of Lord Aurion's sons, and from how he acts you would think he was his firstborn."  
  
"I think he's a cunt," said the youngest of the dragonlords, hesitating on the last word as if he had never been allowed to say it before.  
  
"There's nothing to think about it, he  _is_  a cunt." Aegon said with a sigh. "Anyway, I don't believe we've ever met before. My name's Aegon, and you two?"  
  
"Taena Volantaeris," said the woman, smiling with a small hint of pride in her origins. "I'm sure you know where I come from."  
  
_...gods have mercy, her family founded Volantis._  
  
He nodded slowly as bitter unease rose up his throat; her family was one of the most influential in the entirety of the Freehold, one who wielded a weight in the arguments and discussions of the capital a hundred times greater than that of his own family...but despite being the founders of the first and greatest of the Free Cities of the Valyrian Freehold, turning what had been a fort built in the first of the Ghiscari Wars into a city second only to Valyria itself, they kept the seat of their power inside of the capital city, so as to be closer to the reins of power and better able to influence the course of the Freehold as a whole. To treat someone from such a background with anything other than the highest respect would be a _grave_  error in judgement, one that could have serious consequences not just for him, but for his entire family if they decided to take offense and press the issue.  
  
He bowed almost as quickly as the young boy did. "You honor me with your august presence, my -"  
  
"I'm not from the main branch," Taena said with a laugh. "I'm a cousin to it, but not of it. I would still be in the capital waiting for marriage if I hadn't happened to bond with a dragon when I was little, thank Vhagar for that."  
  
"Even your family can't waste a dragonrider," said the boy before he introduced himself. "I'm Rhaegon. I...uh, don't have a noble name yet."  
  
Aegon blinked.  _Wait...what?_  
  
"How do you have a dragon, but not a noble name?"  
  
"My father was a soldier. He fought against the Sarnori in the last war, so he was given some land near Myr to settle down on. I was playing with my brothers, we were throwing rocks at each other, and...well, we found a dragon asleep in the fields and - "  
  
"A rock hit the dragon, didn't it?" asked Taena blankly as Rhaegon nodded. "How in gods' name are you still  _alive?_ "  
  
Rhaegon shrugged. "I'm just lucky, I guess."  
  
"Luck?" Aegon laughed. "Luck would be getting instantly killed when the dragon woke up, but the dragon bonding with you after you woke him up is a miracle."  
  
"That's what my father said, and we all thought the dragon would leave after a few days, but he stayed around and kept following me about, so my father gave me his old armor...and here I am."  
  
_He's not even a Freeholder yet, but that gives him as good a reason as any to be a part of the campaign._  
  
Aegon glanced at the sword at Rhaegon's hip, a plain sword forged from regular steel, of the same type used by every man who served in the armies of Valyria. "Have you ever used that before?"  
  
"A few hours every fortnight with my father and my brothers," Rhaegon said with a small smile, "It was incase we ever decided to join the armies ourselves."  
  
"Your father sounds like a clever man," Taena said softly, a clear believer in the words she spoke. "Mine always said it was the duty of every man and every dragonrider to fight for the Freehold whenever it calls for us."  
  
"I'm ready to do my part," Rhaegon grinned.  
  
"My family might be far away from Valyria, but I'll do mine without a doubt in my heart," Aegon replied as his father waved him over in silence, Taena and Rhaegon turning to leave, the rest of the dragonlords having long since left.  
  
"I think I'll go pray before we leave," Taena said to Rhaegon's surprise. "It can't hurt to have the gods on your side, I think."  
  
"You're not afraid of the  _Westerosi_ , are you?" Rhaegon teased.  
  
"No," Taena said with a smile. "I'm afraid of the buckles of my mount coming undone and a long fall to my death."  
  
"Wait...that can happen?" Rhaegon asked with concern.  
  
"Oh, it can," Taena teased, "Why do you think so many dragonriders spend so much on a good saddle? For the looks?"  
  
Rhaegon swallowed...and immediately walked out of the room, heading towards the temple as a laughing Taena followed, leaving Aegon alone with his father and their sworn protector. He crossed the room towards the balcony where his father was stood, the Lord Freeholder of Dragonstone looking out across the glittering waters of the bay, watching as the fleet amassed in the port far below, taking on supplies and making their final preparations before they would start to set sail for the Sunset Kingdoms. A city of tents had formed around the small town that shared the castle's name, neatly organized into tidy rows and gradually shrinking as more and more of the invasion force embarked upon the ships that would carry them across the waves and to the start of their campaign.  
  
"Father, you wish to speak with me?" he said with a bow of respect. He and his father had never been as close as some sons and their fathers were, but Aegon admired him and everything he was all the same.  
  
"Indeed, I do," his father said, turning away from the bay to look at his one and only son. "Tell me, what do you think of the dragonlords who will be fighting alongside you?"  
  
"I'm just surprised so many of them are so young," he replied truthfully. "Most of them are younger than I am. Father, why did the Freehold send them instead of more experienced riders?"  
  
"Politics. It's a nasty game, Aegon, and the reason your grandfather - my father - had us leave Valyria. Oh, your mother might like to go on about her prophecies and about a coming doom, but politics is the real reason we had to leave. Some of your grandfather's rivals called it cowardice, you know," his father said with a sigh, "But really, every family in Valyria has left the capital at one point or another to nurse their wounds so as to come back refreshed, sometime even an entire factions has to do it. We just went further away from the Freehold than anyone else would have, using what little resources we had left to have this castle built. I never asked for us to get dragged into politics again, but I hadn't a choice."  
  
"You were still a child when we left Valyria, so you cannot know what it's like. I would count that as a blessing," his father said as he strode across the room and took a letter from a drawer beneath the Painted Table itself before returning to Aegon with it. "But it is as dangerous as the deadliest battle. The laws of the Freehold prevent dragonlords from fighting one another openly - it causes too much damage and weakens the Freehold as a whole - so our disputes are settled in debates and discussions in the capital. Naturally, people with the same interests work together, they look out for one another and support each other whenever they need help, and in return they pool their resources to act as one voice in the capital to get their demands met."  
  
"It's like a dozen different armies all fighting each other at once," his father said with a laugh as he raised the letter and passed it to Aegon. "We hadn't the resources to flee so far from the capital, not by ourselves. So...we had a little help."  
  
Aegon took the letter and looked at the seal curiously. The seal had been broken by his father's letter opener, but the black and red symbol was as clear as ever - a dragon with his wings unfurled atop of a shield, and holding a sword between its jaws and clutching a bow in the left claw and a dozen arrows in the right. "Who are they? I've never seen this crest before."  
  
"The militarist faction," said Daemon quietly. "Whenever Valyria has been in a war, either defensive or otherwise, it has always been the militarists who took command and led the armies, and made sure they were well trained and well equipped in times of peace. They were your grandfather's friends, and the friends of all Targaryens going back a thousand years."  
  
"They gave us the money to build Dragonstone...?"   
  
"Exactly," his father answered with a nod. "I was a young man then, so I wasn't in all of the meetings, but I knew that we were given the coin in return for owing the faction a favor, and that the militarists thought that Dragonstone was a good place to build a fortress to control the Narrow Sea...and the perfect rallying point for an invasion of Westeros," Gaemon waved to the Painted Table with an open arm. "Were it not for their help, we would have had to go to our manse near Oros instead. That would've been fine for us, but your grandfather wanted us to get as far away from Valyria and Essos as possible, just in case Daenys' dreams came true."  
  
"So we owed them a debt, and they've made you organize an invasion?" Aegon asked.  
  
"Not quite," his father said, setting the letter down upon the table. "They asked us to break a tie."  
  
"The Freeholders were split over the vote," Daemon continued. "The religious faction said that the omens favored war and that Syrax would give strength to our arms, but the civics said that it would be better to spend our resources consolidating what we have and that we should spend our time building more roads. Then the merchants backed them, saying that peace kept the markets stable and made it less risky to go trading, but a few of them defected because war gives them more opportunities...and all that meant there was a tie in the Freehold."  
  
The old soldier laughed. "Ties are  _ **rare**_ , the last time there was one it was about whether or not to pursue that Rhoynish whore across the Narrow Sea. Normally, the role of breaking the tie would go to the reigning triarchs, who would choose which side won, but there was still one family of landed dragonriders who had yet to vote, since they hadn't had anyone representing their interests at the capital."  
  
"So the militarists called in their debt and asked for us to vote in their favor, and so I did. Our votes broke the tie, but the result was so close that the triarchs can't justify committing all of the Freehold's resources till they have proof that the invasion would be worth it, and the militarists agree, even if they're happy that we're going to war at all, so the Lords Freeholder have given us the bare minimum they have to till they know whether or not this invasion is going to be worth the expense, and a warchest of a hundred thousand dragons to pay for it all."  
  
"The men we have aren't being paid much in coin," Daemon nodded in agreement with the man he was sworn to protect. "They're getting most of their pay in plunder. Westeros is big, even if it might be poor, so it's been promised that everyone in this army will have a dozen acres to settle on once the conquest is over and done, and just as many slaves to help tend to it. It'll make every single man in the army a Freeholder, and any dragonriders without lands will become Lords Freeholder in their own right."  
  
"That's why they sent so many young riders, isn't it?" he asked as everything he had been told began to sink in. "They're so young that they don't do anything in the debates, so they don't lose much sending them away, and it doesn't matter if they get killed...but they're still a part of their family, so if they win lands in the war the head of their family can take it up and add it to the rest."  
  
"That's right. The only firstborn dragonriders with us are you and Vaeherys, and the only reason he's here is because his father wants him to learn what the world is like outside of a manse and to make him more realistic. Otherwise, he might take over his family's holdings without any idea of how to run them...and besides, his father wants him away from Qohor for whatever reason is his own."  
  
Aegon slowly nodded with quiet understanding.  _He's sent him all the way to Westeros, just to get him away from the rest of his family...? Why would a father do that to his eldest son? We don't get much news here, so we don't really know what's going on in Qohor till months after it happens._    
  
Like every civilization that had came before them, the Freehold had trouble sending messages from one side of the realm to the other in a timely manner, something that was made a thousand times worse by the sheer size of the Freehold. Their great roads made it easy to travel from one city to the next without the risk of losing one's bearings and were kept safe from banditry by the patrols of soldiers who had settled down in the lands near them, but even with those benefits the journey would still take months to travel from the fringes of Qohor to the heartlands of Valyria. However, thanks to the glass candles that were so carefully crafted from the dragonglass mined from beneath the Fourteen Flames and from the Dragonmont, they had a way around such difficulties, but the sheer cost of using them meant that they could only be used at the most dire of times, such as when the Freehold had been attacked, and even then they required the presence of a maegi to be able to work them properly...and if that was not enough, the vast majority of glass candles could only  _receive_  messages, not send them.   
  
"Still," Gaemon continued. "The rest of the faction has made it clear that once we've established ourselves and started sending back slaves and whatever spoils we can get they'll start up another round of debates to get us some more men, or at least some coin. If we're lucky, then they'll be able to convince the rest of the Lords Freeholder and the Triarchs to make this into a proper war, and if that happens...well, the Westerosi will be facing the full might of Valyria, and we'll have another half a million men over here for when the campaign season starts after the end of the next winter."   
  
"So we need to get as much land as possible before winter comes," he said quickly with a smile, knowing what had to be done. "What's the plan for the full invasion? Who are we going to attack first? The Stormlords?"  
  
His father laughed quietly. "That's something that can wait for once we have landed. The weather might be calm, but you can never know what the future might hold, and how many men we could lose if a storm strikes. Still," he looked to Daemon and nodded before looking back to his son, letting his bodyguard leave the room. "We know what we need to attack and we know what order we'll be attacking them in, but that's not why I asked for you to stay. No, as you already know you will be coming with me on the campaign, so as to learn what war is like outside lessons and books, and you'll be taking Balerion into battle for the first time. You are a dragonrider, as I am and as my father was and all the men of the Targaryen family going back to the time when we hatched our first dragon were, as your son will be, as your grandson will be and as all the Targaryens as yet unborn will be."  
  
His father smiled...and in his amethyst eyes, Aegon could see pride. "For that, you should have a weapon that is worthy of a dragonrider."  
  
Daemon stepped back into the room, carefully carrying a case of dark ebony, the black wood covered in ripples of reddish-brown that turned almost crimson in the orange light of the torches adorning the chamber's walls and columns, the lock and hinges forged from Valyrian steel to protect the precious item within.  _Oh...oh gods..._  He stared, stunned, as Daemon knelt before his father, offering him the case and he watched as his father took a key and slid it inside, the case coming unlocked with the most satisfying  _click_  Aegon had ever heard in his life...and his father gently raised the lid with the tips of his fingers, letting the black blade breath fresh air for the first time since his grandfather had passed away.   
  
"Your grandfather had always preferred a lighter weapon," his father said with a voice closer to a whisper than not, his own fingers anxiously wrapping around the grip as he lifted the sword from its resting place. "He always said it was better to strike quickly than to strike hard, and that a weak blow that hits is more dangerous than a strong one that doesn't," his father's smile grew as he looked at Dark Sister, gripping it properly and drawing it an inch from its sheath to show the smoky black steel. "She might be small, but she can be just as deadly as a longer blade if you use her well...just like Balerion."  
  
"She's yours, just as Blackfyre is mine."  
  
His father moved his hand to beneath the crossguard, offering the dragon's head pommel and ebony grip to him.  
  
"Father..." he muttered under his breath, as if asking for permission...then he steeled himself, biting down and reaching out after steadying his trembling hands.  
  
The first thing he noticed as his fingers touched the ebony was how stunningly smooth it was, how it had not a single scratch or scrape, and how  _cold_  it was from its long slumber. He tightened his grasp, holding the sword tightly as he drew it for the first time, Dark Sister leaving its sheath for the first time since they had arrived at Dragonstone, the Valyrian steel blade gliding against the normal steel of the sheath and uttering a deep rasp that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Finally, the blade came free of its prison, and all he could do was stare at it. He knew he was supposed to say something to his father, something profound and noble in thanks, but what words were there in any tongue of men, to show the appreciation he had for being bestowed such a sword, such a great and heavy responsibility?  
  
He blinked, completely dumbstruck.  
  
Then, with a quiet voice overcome by emotion, he simply said, "Thank you."  
  
His father nodded without saying a single word, knowing how much it meant to him without even needing to hear anything more, and Aegon returned the blade to its sheath before turning and walking out of the room, holding the sheathed sword in both hands and with his mind only just starting to catch up with itself.  _He gave me the sword...gods have mercy, he actually gave me the sword._    
  
The sword was made from real Valyrian steel, as sharp as a dragon's teeth and just as deadly...but it was what the weapon symbolized that was more important than anything else. Even in the heartlands of the Freehold such weapons were rare to find and expensive to produce, and though not every man who carried one was a dragonrider, there was not a single dragonrider in the world who did not have such a weapon. It was as much a symbol of their status and rank as the dragon they rode, a sign of the vital role they played in both the creation and the defence of the Freehold they were part of. They could be bought with coin at great cost, true, but they were also commissioned by the triarchs of Valyria and given to those few who had truly  **earnt**  them as a reward for their actions, granting them to legendary warriors and to undefeated generals, regardless of whether the family they came from was great or not...and to their most devoted allies, those kings and lords and  _khals_  who had done the Lords Freeholder a great service. Every family that was of the Lords Freeholder had one - none had more than ten - and it was not unheard of for a father to pass over his sons in favor of a grandson or nephew more deserving of carrying the family blade, though such things were much rarer if the son was a dragonrider.  _My father and I...we've never been close, and he's still got years left, so I always thought there was a chance he might pass over me for my son...but he hasn't. He gave me the blade._  
  
He smiled widely to himself as he ascended the steps to the chambers of his sister-wife, Elaena. They had always known they were going to be married to one another even when they were little, back when the both of them were still chasing each around with sticks in the gardens and pretending to be dragonriders dueling against one another; they had even copied their lord father and lady mother by holding a tiny feast of their own with whatever foods they had managed to pinch from the kitchens, using his wooden soldiers and her woolen dolls as their honored guests. He trusted her and her judgements completely, so much so that there was never a moment where he was afraid to ask for her advice, indeed, she was more sociable than he was - even before she had settled down and started to act like a woman and a lady, she had always known what to say and how to say it best - so he was certain he would let her handle such things when the time came for them to succeed their mother and father in ruling Dragonstone.  _When we rule, I think I'll just let her deal with planning feasts and entertaining guests, she's just so much better than I am at it...she's always been better at dealing with other people than I am, she just **knows**  what to say. If she knew how to use a sword too, well, father probably wouldn't be taking me on the campaign._  
  
He stepped out of the stairwell at the summit of the Sea Dragon Tower, the warm, gentle winds of the Narrow Sea brushing past his cheek and blowing through his silver hair after coming through an open shutter only a few feet from the door of his wife's chambers...and through the cracks of the door he could hear the sound of his sister-wife and his mother talking, along with the soft murmuring of his son, Maegon.  _Mother's probably trying to get her to convince me not to go to war because of some dream she had..._  He rolled his eyes as he stepped towards the door - his grandfather might have been willing to chart the course of their family off of one of her so called prophecies, but the rest of their family was not easily convinced by mere dreams and neither were the rest of the Lords Freeholder; seeing how they had decided to stay in Valyria rather than build a refuge away from the capital in order to flee the Doom that she was so certain was coming. _When my grandfather was still alive he would anything she told him to do, so long as she said it came to her in one of her dreams._  
  
He opened the door and walked inside, and it was as if he had stepped into another castle entirely; the walls were painted white instead of being the plain, seamless black of the rest of the castle, and the room had twice as many sconces as the chamber of the Painted Chamber, filling the room with a warm, bright light even in winter...but if that wasn't enough to make it different, the very air felt more lively and comfortable, too. He had been born in Valyria, true, but he had lived on Dragonstone for longer than he had been in Valyria, but even for him the castle could feel grim and foreboding from time to time, as if it had been besieged by some bloodthirsty foe, but her room felt  _different_  in a way he would never be able to describe.  
  
It felt like  _home_ , like the sound of gentle laughter and the taste of sweet wine, a refuge of warmth even in the darkness of the coldest, fiercest winter, a place where he could relax and calm down from the stresses of everyday life, no matter what had happened.  _Father has always been distant to me and my sister, and mother cares more for her prophecies than she does either us...but my sister and I have always been close, we loved each other even before we were married._  
  
He smiled as he found his sister-wife as she usually was, sat in her favorite chair and sewing as she watched over little Maegon as he played on the floor with his favorite toy, a three headed dragon made from soft pieces of black and red cloth, one foot in size in all directions and stuffed with goose feathers. Even by Valyrian standards she was beautiful, with a smiling face the same shape as a heart and long locks of silver-gold that curled at her shoulders. Her waist had thickened after the birth, however slightly, but that same pregnancy had made her bosom grow plump, a trade that the both of them were happy to accept, and just like the older woman sat a few feet away from her, she was wearing the colors of their family from head to heel.   
  
"Oh look, mother," his wife said with a teasing smile, "Aegon "the Conqueror" has come to visit!"  
  
"If the gods are kind, that's what they'll call me in the future," he replied as he walked past his son and gave her a quick kiss.   
  
"It's fate," his mother said quietly as she sewed Maegon a pair of thick mittens for winter. "There will come an Aegon, and he will go forth and conquer a broken kingdom with an army as golden as the rising sun at his back. I have seen it, in my dreams last night."  
  
"Have you now?" he asked, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "What else did you see?"  
  
"I saw four men," she answered as she set down her needle and looked towards him with an unwavering gaze. "One gold of hair and of eye, lost in a land far from home and with a body that was that of a man one moment and that of a dragon in the next, as changeable as flame. I saw a man with hair as black as coal become king without once being a prince, taking a crown for the price of losing that which he loved the most. I saw another, a boy that become a man that became a monster, laughing at green flames and screaming wolves. The last I saw in the land of winter's own sons, a boy with a red crown, and he -"  
  
"Must you always be so grim, mother?" Elaena asked with a sigh as Maegon crawled towards her with his dragon in hand. "It's a good thing Maegon doesn't know what you're saying yet, otherwise he would think the entire world is doom and gloom."  
  
"Doom!" Daenys laughed. "There will come a doom, oh yes, and a dragon will die and another will rise from the ashes to take his place..." His mother started to smile and picked up her needle again, going back to her sewing. "But you don't want to talk of such things, so we won't. Are you eager to go fight, Aegon?"   
  
Aegon blinked.  _She... she stopped talking about her prophecies?_  
  
_That's scarier than that time she told us about that raven-man who turned into a tree after killing his brother...she said he'd eat us if we didn't behave, and we were only three!_  
  
"I've never been in a battle before, but I'll give it a try," he answered half-seriously and half-joking. "The Westerosi will be many, but they've got no dragons, so it should be easy enough to win the war."  
  
"Mother was telling me about how the Westerosi actually had dragons, once," his sister said with a smile and eyes that told him she hadn't believed a word their mother had said, then or now. "Ice dragons. They had claws, or so she said, but they're long gone now anyway."  
  
_If they ever existed at all._  
  
"If they really were real, there would be skeletons left behind for us to find. If we find one, I'll try and convince father to have it sent here for you to see."  
  
His wife laughed. "You haven't even landed in Westeros yet, and you're already making plans to plunder the dead."  
  
"So far as I know, the Westerosi never rode their dragons even if they did exist," he said with a smile. "They would have been wild, and you can't really steal from a dead animal. You can't steal from a live one, even."  
  
"...but they can certainly try and steal from us," his sister sighed, gesturing towards the open shutters of her window. "A raven tried to make off with one of my rings earlier when I took it off to feed Maegon, the little fiend had flown up to the windowsill and walked over the rest of way whilst I had my back turned. If Maegon hadn't started crying at the sight of him, well, I wouldn't have noticed till he was halfway back to wherever his nest is."  
  
"It must have been one of the ravens the Westerosi use for their messages," his mother suggested. "They usually fly over the castle without stopping for long, but I suppose it must have seen the ring's shine as it flew past and decided to try and take that, too."  
  
"Then that's one message that won't be getting delivered to anywhere other than hell, I suppose."  
  
Aegon looked towards his sister, curious. "What do you mean?"  
  
"I hit him."  
  
"With...?"  
  
"A chair," she answered as innocently as she could, as if killing birds was as common a thing as playing the harp. "I wasn't even  _trying_  to hit him - I just picked up the nearest thing that I thought could scare him off. It was a glancing blow, I don't think I broke any bones or anything, but the bird tumbled off the balcony and I didn't hear his wings flap as he fell."  
  
"You must have knocked the poor thing out for when he fell on the rocks," his mother said with a sigh and a shake of her head. "At least it would be quick and painless."  
  
Elaena smiled sweetly as she tried to change the topic...and then she saw the pommel of the sword he was holding, and leaned closer to take a better look before her eyes went wide in disbelief.   
  
He grinned widely and said simply, "It's exactly what you think it is, love."  
  
He took the sword with both of his hands and slid it halfway from its scabbard, showing her the smoky black steel of his new weapon. The blade's quiet rasp drew the attention of his infant son, too, who sat down on the floor besides his mother, happily murmuring with his fingers in his mouth as he watched his father and saw Valyrian steel for the first time.  _He doesn't know what it is yet or what it means, but...he'll know one day, and when he does Elaena and I will tell him about when he first saw it._  
  
"Gods be good..." his sister muttered as she reached out and touched the blade with the tips of her fingers. "He gave you grandfather's sword..." she smiled, a tiny smile of true happiness for him. "He must be serious about having you there at his side if he gave you that."  
  
"He is," he said with a smile and a nod. "I'll be besides him for the entire campaign, from the moment we land till winter comes."  
  
"Speaking of your father," his mother said as she set her sewing work aside and climbed from her seat, looking at the both of them with an expression that said far more than her words did. "I suppose he would want to say his goodbyes to me in private. I best go find him, before he starts to think I fell into the Dragonmont."  
  
He and his sister nodded in quiet understanding as their mother walked out of the room, leaving them alone with only their son as company. He returned Dark Sister to its scabbard before gently laying the weapon down upon the table where they took their meals together, turning back to his wife in time to catch her embrace and to see the concern covering her cheeks and filling her eyes, so well hidden barely a minute before.   
  
"Are you sure about this, Aegon?" she asked quietly. "Westeros...there are always other men who can take your place in the campaign, I don't think father would object if you chose to stay behind and protect Dragonstone after he leaves."  
  
"Elaena," he soothed, holding her tight against him and looking into her eyes, a hand going through her silver hair. "I'll be  _fine._  Father will be there besides me, and Daemon and all the other men in the army too. They'll keep me safe."  
  
"But there is always that chance..." she looked towards Maegon, a tear on her cheek. "Aegon...I don't want our son to grow up without his father."  
  
"Don't cry, love," he replied, making a reassuring smile he hardly felt like wearing, brushing her tears away with a gentle touch. "I'll be home by winter."  
  
"I can tell your mind is made, and I won't be able to change it," she sighed with a long, sad breath before looking back to him and nodding once. "Will you write to me, at least? So that I know you're still..."  
  
"It'll be hard getting the messages to you, sweet-sister, but...I will send them, whenever I get the chance. Just...write back to me when my messages arrive, alright? It'll help me focus on the battles if I know you and Maegon are alright."  
  
"I will," she said instantly. "As soon as I get your messages."  
  
"I best get my equipment, father wants us to leave as soon as possible, and -"  
  
"I can tell when your mind is made, and I know I won't be able to change it..." she sighed with a long, sad breath before looking back to him and nodding once. "Just...promise me that you won't take any stupid risks, alright? I'd rather be married to a live man who didn't get a chance to fight than a dead hero.  
  
"Don't worry, love," he said with a smile, "I won't do anything Father wouldn't do himself...and speaking of father, I best go get my equipment. He wants us to leave as quickly as possible, and -"  
  
"It's all here," she smiled a small, sad smile as she gestured towards a chest on the far side of the room. "I knew there was the chance that I wouldn't be able to convince you...so I had it brought here."  
  
"Thank you," he said with a loving squeeze before letting go and walking over, his wife turning and picking up their little Maegon and holding him on her hips before returning to her seat, humming softly as she played with him, but he knew her well enough to know when she was trying to hide her feelings.  _She's waiting for me to get changed...the longer I take, the harder it'll be for her._  
  
He smiled at the two of them, then he looked towards the chest, carefully raising the heavy lid and taking all of his equipment under his shoulders, one piece at a time. First, there was a pair of leather breeches, a jerkin with long sleeves, doeskin gloves and thick boots, all to keep him comfortable and warm between battles...and to soften blows and to serve as the last line of defense, should everything else fail. Above that was his main protection, a full dress of scalemail so long that it stretched from the scruff of his neck all the way down to just above his knees and to the end of his wrists, with a padded coif to cover his throat and the top of his shoulders. Lastly, there was his helmet, carefully wrought into the shape of a dragon's head by a master blacksmith, one who had gone so far as to painstakingly etch scales into the surface, and perhaps the most expensive part of his protection, if only because of the silver leaf and golden rings used to decorate the horns, showing his rank and status as a dragonlord at a glance and from across a chaotic battlefield, an important thing should he ever be knocked from his mount or forced to land.  _But it's mostly because of tradition. The normal soldiers who make up the rest of the army have helmets just like it, if not as well made, but their officers have silver horns and their generals have them in gold. Dragonriders have them too, but we always have gold rings on them to show that we're dragonlords, even when we're away from our mounts._  Finally, at the bottom of the chest, there was his cloak of black and red, wrapped around his daggers and the small bag that contained his leather belts and their buckles, his socks and coin purse and everything he might need to groom himself between battles, even the dragonglass razor that was a thousand times sharper than any metal blade..even when counting Valyrian steel.  _...but I think I'll leave that till I've got the rest of my armour on...gods have mercy, this stuff is heavy when you're trying to carry it all under your arms at once._  
  
_Not that I can tell Elaena that. She'd tease me about it till the day I die of old age._  
  
The only thing that was missing was his shield, and that was because of two simple reasons; firstly, it was too long for the chest, secondly, it was nigh-impossible to mount a dragon whilst holding a shield at the same time.  _That means they have it with Balerion._  
  
He pushed the bedchamber door open with his elbow when his wife turned away, stepping inside and kicking it closed again with the back of his heel, turning his attention entirely to the task of getting himself ready for whatever battles might come next, swapping the soft cloths of peace for the cold, hard steel of war, donning all the layers one by one in complete silence. He was still young enough to have some growing left to do, some height to be gained and some muscle to be built, but even still his armour fit him well; his breeches were snug even without the belts to hold them up, and even if it felt a little too heavy on the shoulders that was something that he would get used to, in time, when he had worn his armour long enough to have properly grown into it.  _I didn't think I would ever have to wear it, other than for special occasions, but...I suppose my grandfather and his grandfather probably thought the same when they first put it on, too._  
  
He held his helmet under his shoulder, then turned to look at himself in the mirror one last time, to make sure that everything was on properly and as he had been taught, that there was not some small small thing that he might've overlooked that would cost him his life at the start of the first battle, whenever it might be...and for a few seconds he could barely recognize himself, the man in the reflection looking more like someone taken from the height of the last of the Ghiscari Wars, taken from the midst of the long campaigns and legendary battles that he had been made to study for hours on end, as any Lord Freeholder had to, reading the memoirs of the generals who had led Valyria to its greatest ever triumph, the treatises of the Triarchs who had made it possible for their armies to obtain their final victory and the journals of the men who had fought in the battles on foot.  _This war will be the biggest since then, and I'll be part of it from the start...maybe I should keep a journal of my own? For my son to read when he's old enough?_  
  
He paused to adjust his leathers, to loosen them in a place they were caught, then he stepped out of the room, his wife immediately lookings towards him with a sad smile, Maegon resting against her breast and following her gaze towards his father in tired confusion, too young to understand why he was dressed the way he was, where he would be going or for how long. She rose from her seat again, crossing the room towards him with a few short, soft steps.  
  
"I hoped I would never see you wearing that, not outside of training," she spoke with sad eyes as she looked him over from head to heel, looking for any flaw he might have missed. "It looks good on you."  
  
"Thank you," his smile widened as he took Maegon from her, ruffling his silver hair as his wife reached into the chest and grabbed his belt, crouching down before him and buckling it for him. "You'll be the man of the castle whilst your grandfather and I am away," he bopped his son's nose, making the little boy burst into laughter, "But I'm sure your mother and grandmother will do all the work for you."  
  
"Da?" Maegon said excitedly as he threw his little arms around Aegon in a wide hug, not even able to reach his sides.  _He only knows how to say a few dozen words and not all of them properly, but he's learning...gods, I hope I don't miss much whilst I'm at war. He'll be taking his first steps, soon..._  
  
"He'll miss you so much when you're gone," his wife sighed as she stood back up. "He's never been away from you for even a day...gods know how I'll calm him once you've been gone a week."  
  
"The only thing you can do is just try and keep him busy long enough that he doesn't notice I'm gone," he suggested. "Besides, mother will be happy to help if you ask."  
  
"True, but it won't be easy either way. Mother will probably be in the kitchens and cutting the meats open to see the future in the marbling, or some other madness with those prophecies of hers..." she rolled her eyes. "I won't be surprised if I have to look after her more than I do our son."  
  
"She's not that mad, sister. She just...sees things, or so she says."  
  
"Yes, well, before you got here she was going on and on about some wolf in a tower guarded by a falling star," she sighed again before smiling at him. "But my hero of a husband saved me from having to listen to more of her ravings."  
  
"Some men slay monsters, others conversations," he said with a laugh. "Both rescue ladies in need, or so it seems."  
  
"And you best be staying away from any "ladies" whilst you're in Westeros," his wife said sternly. "If you come back with a bastard..."  
  
"Don't worry," he said again, cutting her off before she could mention whatever punishment she had thought up. "I won't need any Westerosi woman when I've got you waiting for me when I get back...besides, they would probably try and kill me if I gave them the chance."  
  
"I wouldn't think so," his wife said with her arms crossed. "Westerosi girls are like that raven I hit, because if you show them something shiny they'll do whatever you want to get it from you."  
  
He couldn't help but laugh. "And if I sleep with one, you'll beat me with a chair?"  
  
His wife smiled and started to nod slowly, making him laugh once again as he passed Maegon back to her, the little boy wrapping his arms around her and softly murmuring into her chest, Aegon turning and taking his cloak of wool dyed black and red and fastening it on with two small circlets, both made from iron trimmed with silver and both bearing the three headed dragon of his family.  
  
"I have to go, love," he said as he took Dark Sister and fastened it around his middle, pulling the belt tight and taking his helmet under his arm, then standing as tall and as straight as he could before walking towards the door with the practiced, confident steps of a man who had spent long afternoons practicing under the watchful eye of a veteran fighter.  
  
"Come back to me," she pleaded with a voice little higher than that of a whisper, looking towards him with somber eyes, as if she was watching him die.  
  
He looked back towards her and nodded slowly without a smile, replying with a voice as low as hers had been. "I will, I promise."  
  
She gave him another smile, the saddest of them all, then sat back into her chair, holding Maegon against her body and whispering to him words that were too quiet for him to hear. With his goodbyes said, he stepped out of the room and closed the door behind him, scales rattling however so quietly with every movement he made as he descended the steps and made his way through the castle's keep, the Stone Drum that was the heart in the centre of the great stone dragons that made up all of the castle's walls and buildings, great and small, a heart that even began to beat during the fiercest of storms, when the winds rush against the seamless masonry and make it boom as loud as thunder.  _Dragonstone is strong...but when we were little, Elaena and I used to huddle together under our beds, just in case, but when the worst storms happen it sounds like the world is ending, and there's nowhere in the entire castle where you can't hear the winds howling._  The castle's hall was empty aside from a few dozen tables still being cleared and put away by the countless servants and slaves of Dragonstone, the commanders of the army they would be fighting alongside having already had their morning meal an hour before. Most of the people in the room were Westerosi, either people who had already been on Dragonstone when his family arrived to settle or those who had been living along the continent's eastern shore and were captured by Valyrian slavers, though there were still those with the dark hair and eyes of the Sarnori, or the bronze skin of those nomadic horsemen who occasionally crossed the Freehold's eastern fringes, raiding and raping only to get utterly annihilated whenever the Freehold turned its attentions to them, their warriors massacred and those who survived were forced to behead their own horses to add insult to injury before being marched into the fighting pits, whilst the women and the rest of their tribes were sold into slavery or used as fodder by Valyrian blood sorcerers.  _They're stupid enough to ride into battle without wearing armour, so Valyria has not once ever had to use dragons against them. The men are useless since they're idiots and too much hassle to deal with, but their women know how to clear plates and how to cook at least. I wouldn't be surprised if we just wipe them out in the future, like we did the Ghiscari._  
  
He stepped out into the courtyard and made his way out of the busy fortress, a long walk to a side gate that led away from the town and towards the Dragonmont, where the few sorcerers that had come with them for the invasion had made camp...and one of the few places on the island that had enough open ground for  _all_  of the invasion's dragons to be able to land at once. The sorcerers of Valyria were...unnerving, even for him; in times of war and peace, they tended to the dragons that had forged the Freehold and made their armies invincible, some going so far as to spend their entire lives caring for them and treating their wounds, and were it not for their blood magics he would think they were some of the most noble people in the world. So many of them had taken to worshipping the fires they used for their spells and rituals and the light that shone from them that they had formed into a proper cult within the Freehold, already at work at building their first temple near Volantis, whilst some few had become dragon worshippers, sacrificing slaves by the dozen to the creatures they prayed to as their gods incarnate, sometimes even burning themselves in the belief that they could turn  _themselves_  into dragons, if that was not enough.  _They speak tongues that no man was ever meant to hear...I am a Valyrian, the son of a Lord Freeholder and a dragonrider in my own right...but they scare me all the same. If Balerion and the other dragons could land anywhere else, I wouldn't even come here._  
  
He ascended the steps carved into the side of the Dragonmont, the sun's golden light glittering off the dragonglass and the black slate all around him, the wind fluttering through his cloak as his hand went to the pommel of Dark Sister as he heard the voices in the distance, speaking in twisted tongues that no mortal man should ever hear or know, the dragons high in the sky above howling and screeching as if in reply. Red banners waved in the winds, bearing an orange heart surrounded by flames with a dragon within, the symbol of Valyria's sorcerers, and all around him were the tents of red cloth and the inhumanly beautiful men and women outside of them, garbed in flowing red silks and surrounded by slaves branded upon the cheek with the symbol of the order, chained and guarded by fierce soldiers wearing armor that was as functional as it was ornate, colored with a mix of oranges, golds and reds, like the colors of the setting sun. They paid him no attention as they went about their rituals and their incantations, something he counted as being a blessing sent from the Fourteen, so he quickly made his way to a great bonfire placed in the centre of the camp, where all the other dragonlords were waiting for their mounts to be called down, talking amongst themselves and fully equipped for the first of the battles to come.  
  
"I was starting to wonder if you were actually going to show up!" laughed Rhaegon as he walked over, wearing a thick mantle of plain grey wool over his armour, not having the coin for anything better, with his father's helm fastened to his belt. "Taena's around here somewhere," he said as he looked around, glancing upwards in search of his mount. "I've never seen so many dragons in one place before..."  
  
"My father told me once that there are so many dragons in Valyria that they could block out the sun if they took to the skies at once," Aegon said as he looked to the skies, watching the great gathering for a moment before looking back to the young dragonlord. "They get more aggressive when there are so many of them about."  
  
"To  _us_?" Rhaegon asked with concern.  
  
"Sometimes," he replied. "It's all about how you treat them and how much they've been trained, but I don't think they even see us when there are so many of them around. No, they're more likely to fight each other than they are us. It's about proving who the strongest amongst them is."  
  
"Ah, right..." Rhaegon trailed off before asking more bluntly, "But...what if they've not got any training...?"  
  
"Best not to get too close, then," Aegon teased...then when he saw the fear, he smiled and said the truth. "So long as you're familiar to them, you'll be fine. It's anyone they don't recognize who they start to have trouble with. That's one of the reasons we all wear the same armour; it makes us look the same, even if only a little, and a dragon isn't as angry against something it knows."  
  
"Oh, that's good then," Rhaegon smiled, though Aegon could still see some concern in his eyes. "I...haven't quite been able to train my dragon. Not yet, anyway."  
  
"You can atleast make him breath fire on command, though?"  
  
"That I can!" Rhaegon answered with growing pride. "He just refuses to listen to  _any_  other commands of mine."  
  
Aegon laughed. "Give it time."  
  
"...though some dragons never quite learn how to behave towards their masters," Vaeherys said with annoyance, his arms crossed. "My own mount has never defied a command before today. I called for him after our gathering, only for him to ignore my words and continue...whatever it is he saw fit to do."  
  
Vaeherys looked to the sky, frowning, then pointing with an armoured hand to one of the dragons in the sky, a great monster of silver and a grey so dark it looked more like stone than scales. He circled around another of near equal size, colored green and yellow, the two warbeasts howling at one another furiously, hissing at one another with weak gouts of fire that always came short of the other...then they tipped their wings, spiraling closer and closer together before latching onto one another, making it all too clear what was happening between the two.  
  
Vaeherys growled and looked back to Aegon, annoyed. "Were he a horse and not a dragon, I would have had him gelded for ignoring my commands to do...that."  
  
"That's...extreme, seeing as you said he's been nothing but obedient till this time."  
  
"Not when it had made him more aggressive," Vaeherys answered with a sigh. "Now he'll be passive for weeks and I will have no choice but to use whips to rouse his temper, all because he decided to rut on the eve of an invasion."  
  
"Now you have me wondering where my mount is," Rhaegon said as he searched the skies. "I haven't seen him since I got here."  
  
_Thank the Fourteen that Balerion's still three years too young for it...it would be a nightmare trying to find out who would get a third of the clutch._  
  
"He's probably near the mountain's top," Aegon suggested. "That's where most of the dragons land. They like the heat."  
  
Rhaegon looked towards the mountain top, hoping to find find some sign of his dragon before shaking his head and looking at the ground in defeat. "He'll show up...I'm sure."  
  
"What does he look like?"  _If I knew what he looked like, I could ask the servants and find out if they've seen him anywhere._  
  
"He's really big, and black and brown, like good soil."  
  
"Are you sure you didn't mistake him for a bear?" Vaeherys laughed. "Or has your dragon abandoned you?"  
  
"No!" Rhaegon said instantly, his voice certain. "Fieldfyre would never do that. This is the first time he's been away from me for more than an hour. He's around...somewhere...I'm sure of it."  
  
"If not, I suppose the army always has need of more footmen," Vaeherys said with a cold shrug. "Now, I best find the rider of that dragon, so as to discuss the matter of any eggs that might result."  
  
Vaeherys turned and walked away without saying another word, or even waiting for a reply.  _Gods, what is wrong with him?_  Almost as soon as his back was turned, Taena walked over from somewhere else in the camp, holding a cup of dark red wine.  
  
"Sorry for not coming sooner, I saw him standing around and waited for him to leave," she said quietly as Vaeherys left. "I might hate him, but I'm not drunk enough to pick a fight with one of Aurion's sons, even if he's not his heir. Not yet, anyway."  
  
"That's probably he's like this," Aegon said with an annoyed sigh. "I would bet ten gold dragons that none of his tutors were brave enough to tell him off when he acted like that."  
  
"I will," said Rhaegon, determined, his sword hand firmly grasping the pommel of his blade. "As soon as I have Fieldfyre back. I'll make sure he never talks like that to anyone ever again."  
  
"Don't even think about it," Aegon said sternly, softening after stepping closer to the younger dragonlord. "Anything you do to him...his father will take as a slight. He'll make sure you never get any lands of your own, or ever become a Lord Freeholder. He might even have you killed."  
  
"So I just have to...take everything he says? Every insult?"   
  
"Aurion's the head of the militarists," Taena explained with a nod and a sip of her wine. "He's a great general and an even better politician if what my cousins say is true, but if he had his way, he would probably try and take over the entire Freehold and have it as his own little kingdom. Just ignore what Vaeherys says, and you'll be fine."  
  
Rhaegon sighed, sulking as any boy his age might.  _He'll get used to it in the end. We've all got to do things we don't want to do every now and then._  
  
"So..." he started, trying to change the topic to rouse Rhaegon from his mood and to pass the time. "What color is your dragon, Taena? Mine's black and red."  
  
"Mine? My cousin's mount is purple, but mine is green and yellow."  
  
"Green and yellow?" Rhaegon started to smile, remembering what had happened barely a few minutes before. "How big?"  
  
"That's her," Taena said with pride as she pointed to the same green and yellow dragon that had coupled with Aurion's, circling about before coming to land on the Dragonmont's easternmost ridge, facing inwards and unfurling her wings to take in as much heat as possible. "She's my pride and joy. She's forty years old, so she's still got a lot of growing to go, but -"  
  
Rhaegon burst into laughter, and Aegon couldn't help but join him.   
  
"What are you two laughing at?" Taena snapped angrily.  
  
"You might hate Aurion," Rhaegon said with a teasing smile, "But your dragon likes his."  
  
"What in gods' name do you mean?"  
  
"You might have to give Aurion a third," Aegon said as he stood besides Rhaegon, both of them making the same smile.  
  
Taena looked at them both in confusion...and then she realized, throwing her cup away with a fury as cold and as sharp as ice. "That cunt. That fucking  cunt. He can throw himself into the fucking  **Dragonmont**  if he thinks I'll give him any of the eggs."  
  
Aegon grinned widely, about to give her a witty reply, when one of the sorcerers stepped over, a beautiful woman who looked only a few years older than his beloved Elaena, wearing nothing the but the finest of red silks from head to heel and decorated by a golden necklace, a great ruby embedded in its center.   
  
"Aegon Targaryen," she said with a quiet voice that he would have been able to hear in the busiest of halls, so distinct was her tone and accent. "Your father has made it known to us that he is inspecting the army, and will be accompanying them on foot for the landing before claiming his mount. Till then, he has given you the command of all the riders."  
  
_It's a position I'll probably keep till the end of the war._  
  
"Is everything ready for us to depart, then?" he asked. "Are we ready to fly?"  
  
"We have done everything we might need to, Citizen Targaryen," the woman nodded with all the respect that was necessary - whereas the Westerosi and the Andals might address the sons of a lord with the same reverence that they did his father, but in the Freehold, even the son and heir of one of the reigning Triarchs was nothing more than a Free Citizen till he had lands of his own. "We are ready to sound the horn on your command."  
  
He swallowed hard. There was not a Valyrian alive who did not know what a dragonhorn was, or what it sounded like, even if they had only been told stories second hand. Whilst any good rider could get the attention of their mount and get them to land, it was impossible for one to do the same when there were more than a dozen of them flying in the skies at once, so focused were they on each other.  _But a dragonhorn means that one man can make a hundred dragons land at once. It was one of the first things the Valyrians of old learnt how to do after finding the dragons, long before we first left the Lands of the Long Summer or founded our great Freehold._  
  
"You may begin, then," he said with a solemn, steady voice. "As for my father's mount, I will find a way to get him to Westeros for our arrival."  
  
The woman nodded in silence before turning to the rest of the sorcerers, speaking in a tongue he was thankful not to know. A strong chest of thick ebony, reinforced with barss of steel and with a lock as large as his fist, was brought out from the greatest of the tents by tattooed slaves and escorted by no less than fourteen of their best soldiers, equals to any in the army embarking for war, if perhaps better dressed. A great ring of dried wood was built, filled with kindling and tinder, around which fourteen sorcerers began to gather as all the dragonlords in the camp wandered over to see the the magic unfold.   
  
Then, the chest was opened.  
  
Inside was a great horn of dragonbone, six feet long, with a gleam as dark as onyx and ribbed with bands of red gold and Valyrian steel, besides a long blade of dragonglass, no wider than his thumb, all resting atop a soft red pillow. The woman walked over and took the glass dagger in hand, gripping the hiltless blade, and at once the red wizards began to chant, their voices deep and low, building ever greater with every step and every moment of the woman that led them. With three cracks of a whip with fourteen tails a slave crept forth, taking the horn and moving to the centre of the wooden ring, the last gap in it closed up behind them. The red woman turned again as another slave stepped forth, far more bold than the other and with the bronze skin of an Essosi tribesmen, holding the dragonglass dagger in her right hand as the chant loudened, words changing.  
  
"Gods...is she..." Rhaegon stared in utter horror, stepping backwards in his fear only for Taena to push him forward again, putting her hand on his shoulder and holding him where he was.   
  
"You said you would do anything for the Freehold, Rhaegon," she said with a softness she hadn't shown before as the slave stepped forth, standing before the red woman with a body covered in scars and brandmarks. "Right now, all you have to do is wait."  
  
Rhaegon looked back at her with pleading eyes, begging for her to let him go...but she would not relent, and he turned back to the ritual unfolding before them.   
  
The red woman howled a phrase to the sky, echoed by all the others, and then she shouted it again in the Valyrian tongue : "Blood for  **fire!** "  
  
She put her other hand against the dragonglass, gripping tightly...then she ran it forward, cutting across her palm and covering the black glass in steaming hot crimson...and the dagger set alight, burning as bright as the rising sun on a clear summer's day. The chanting grew louder yet, screaming towards the skies and sending chills through Aegon's spine with every word.  
  
"Fire for  **blood!** "  
  
In an instant, the woman sank the blade into the man's bare chest, the slave only seeming to flinch as it pierced his heart, then she twisted it around to open the wound and ripped the dagger out again, letting him fall onto the wooden ring as his lifeblood poured forth.  
  
Finally, she thrust the burning dagger into the circle...and instantly the entire circle was ablaze, burning higher and brighter than any flame he had ever seen before.  _Fourteen have mercy on us all..._  Panicked screams spread from the middle of the ring, the slave dropping the horn as the chanting rose higher and higher, the very dragons in the eyes above screeching back at them and quickening their pace, a hundred black wings fluttering as quickly as they could as they circled over the campground, hissing and snarling with fiery breath.  
  
The woman put forth a bloody-but-open palm, as if holding the flame in her hands, the chanting reaching its crescendo as the hornbearer put his lips against the dragonhorn's mouth, knowing that to do otherwise was to die by the flames raging all around him.   
  
She threw her hand high into the air...and a fiery dragon leapt upwards from the bonfire, screeching with a shrill, tortured voice that came from the depths of hell and froze him to the core, piercing through his ears and booming across the entire island as the dragon soared into the skies and exploded into a flower of smoke and flame and ash, every single dragonlord on the island bewitched by the spectacle...and when he looked back down to where the bonfire had been raging only seconds before, there was now only the horn, it's glyphs glowing bright white and surrounded by ashes.  
  
Then Balerion descended, landing on the ground no more than a dozen feet away from him, hissing at all the slaves nearby even as they rushed away from her. Then another dragon dropped down from the skies, not far from its master...then another, and another, the dark skies clearing as the warbeasts found their masters. He looked back to a pale Rhaegon, who looked as if he might be sick at any moment, and patted him on the shoulder.   
  
"You did well," he said with a tiny smile, knowing exactly what the boy was feeling.  
  
"Gods...they're  _gone_ ," he uttered, frozen in place and staring at the place where the bonfire was. "He's...he's not even got a body anymore. There should be bones, maybe -"  
  
"Relax," Taena said, as unnerved by it all as Aegon was. "It's over. Don't dwell on it, just find your dragon and mount him. We're at war, you can't afford to be distracted."  
  
"Have you ever seen that before?" Rhaegon asked quietly as he looked to the both of them, haunted by what he had seen. "Do...can you ever get used to it? To seeing people sacrificed like that?"  
  
"This is the first time I have ever seen them use a horn," Aegon admitted. "If the gods are kind, I'll never see it happen again...but, if it happened enough times...I think it would be just another part of getting ready to fight, in the end. But Taena's right; what's done is done, Rhaegon. Don't let it haunt you."  
  
"I've heard the sound before," Taena said with a stoic look, "But I've never seen it happen with my own eyes till now. It's terrible, but if you can't handle that...gods help you when we go into battle. There'll be "  
  
Rhaegon fell silent and looked to the ground, and it was clear in that moment what was wrong with him.  _He's never seen a man die before, not even in a fighting pit...Fourteen flames, we're going into battle soon._  Aegon sighed, knowing that what Rhaegon was going through was something he had to deal with on his own - else he would never be able to fight in a proper battle - and gave them both his goodbyes. "I'll see you both when we get to Westeros."  
  
"Good flying," Taena acknowledged with a nod before setting off to find her mount, leaving Rhaegon alone as he set off in search of his own dragon, not saying a single word to either of them.  _He just needs time to think, that's all._  
  
Aegon walked over to his dragon, his Balerion, who snapped at a nearby attendant who tried to calm her down, nearly taking both his arms in the process. She snarled and hissed, as angry as a storm, putting her wings against the ground and using them to push herself high, towering over any mortal man and larger than the greatest of elephants even at her mere fourteen years. Another red robed man stepped towards her with a large, rattling puppet fastened on the end of stick, waving it around to get her attention and to take it off the other maegi, but she saw through his tricks and took a shallow breath before setting the edge of his robe alight, missing his body only because he had been fast enough to move and not because she had chosen to warn him.   
  
"Balerion! Leave them be!" he said loudly and strongly, letting her hear the hardness in his voice as the robed wizards fled her terrible anger, even as he boldly stepped towards the dragon, undeterred by her foul mood.  
  
Balerion's fiery eyes snapped to him and filled with black rage, the dragoness turning to its newest challenger. She breathed in and howled at him in anger, a fierce roar that soaked him from the spray of her daggery tongue. She rose back up in triumph, looking down on an unphased Aegon...and then, after a moment's confusion, she recognized who he was. She sputtered and cleared her throat, as if she was embarrassed, then she lowered her height to as close as she could get to his, nuzzling her head against his body and cooing softly as he gently rubbed her cheeks and the soft scales behind her horns.  _She's always had a temper to things she doesn't know...but she can be soft to those she does._  
  
_...a little like Elaena when she was younger, now that I think of it._  
  
Balerion murmured happily, lowering her wings again for him to climb onto her back, but he took his hands away and she looked at him with quiet confusion, her expression and sad mewlings tugging at his heart.  
  
"Not today, Balerion," he said with a voice that any man might use when talking with his closest friends and beloved pets. "Father needs me to take Blackfyre, but you'll be coming too," he said, rubbing her head with a smile. "Once we've landed, we'll be back together again before long."  
  
_I just need to find where my father's mount has landed...it won't be hard. He's a hundred and sixty and as large as a castle._  Blackfyre had been the mount of his grandfather and his great-grandfather before it had been his father's, the old and battle hardened dragon shared it's name with the first of the fwo blades that his family owned, given because of his black scales...and the black flame he breathed when his anger was roused. He was Balerion's sire and for a time he had protected her jealously, even from Aegon, and he only stopped doing such when she became some two years old and able to properly fend for herself. Since then he had become more quiet and calm than not, less impulsive as most dragons were and more hesitant, more cautious, all of it thanks to his experiences in battle.  _He's an old soldier, just like Daemon. I wouldn't be surprised if -_  
  
The sky went dark as an ancient monster of black and red flew overhead, tipping enormous wings about before slamming into the ground with so much force as to make the earth shake, every other dragon nothing but a dwarf in comparison. Taena's own dragon bravely roared against it, only for Blackfyre to look towards her and make her silent with nothing but a glance of his great red eyes, the powerful green dragon instantly falling silent and turning away, looking towards the ground as if trying to pretend that Blackfyre was not there, and that she was still dominant amongst the dragons near her. He laughed and started walking towards it, and as soon as his foot touched the ground again Balerion began to follow him, staying no more than three steps behind him and never straying from his path; they had been together since they were both very little, and the bond between the two was utterly unbreakable because of it.  _Even if my father let me keep Blackfyre as my mount after the landing...I wouldn't want him. Balerion is **my**  dragon, I would never ride any other dragon if I had a choice about it, but my father needs me to take his dragon to the front._  
  
He hummed a tune as he went through the camp, Balerion following him every step of the way, watching as the skies finally cleared and as the slaves began to pack up the tents to take them to Westeros, where the sorcerers would be most needed.  _I hope we won't be taking them into battle with us...there are plenty of things for them to do away from the army. I don't hate magic and sorcery, I just...don't trust them._  Balerion snarled at a passing maegi, sensing Aegon's unease about them, then continued on her way besides him, standing closer as if to protect him from the sorcerers that were all around the both of them, even if none of the red robed men and women were paying either of them much attention. Finally, when they had crossed the camp to the open field where Blackfyre had landed, the great dragon standing tall and unfurling his vast wings, stretching out with a silent yawn, Balerion slumped to the ground a few dozen feet from her father, sitting in silent sadness.  _She knows I won't be riding her today...dragons are more intelligent than most people like to think. They have to be, else we would have never been able to tame them to use them as mounts in the first place._  
  
Blackfyre looked towards his daughter, and after seeing her somber mood, he leaned over, hugging the ground to bring himself down to her height...then he gave her a lick and a nuzzle, the way a cat might do to its kittens. Balerion hissed at her father, only to be licked again and again, going quiet and relenting to her father's unwanted affections as the elder dragon tries to cheer its young whelp. He laughed at the sight, then a thought came to mind...  _Maybe I could...no, that's stupid, but it'd save time..._    
  
"Fit the both of them with their saddles and harnesses," he commanded to a group of waiting attendants, the rest already at work on the other dragons. "Make sure to put my father's and my own tenting on Blackfyre. He's the strongest dragon here, we might as well make use of that strength."  
  
"Hey, Aegon, I'm...a little worried about Rhaegon," said Taena as she walked over, looking towards the most open part of the field where the young dragonlord was sat, waiting. "His dragon isn't here still, even after the horn was sounded."  
  
"He rode here on one," Aegon reasoned. "He has to be around here somewhere."  
  
"But  _where_  did it go?" Taena sighed, shaking her head. "Dragon's don't just fly off like that, not if they've let someone ride them so far."  
  
Aegon shrugged, having no answers for her.  
  
"Still..." Taena started to smile, taking her mind from the younger of the two. "I must say, that's one of the largest and calmest dragons I have ever seen," she said as she waved to Blackfyre as the slaves used a crane powered by oxen to raise the great harness onto his back, the dragon himself hunched over and lying flat on his belly, trying to make it quicker so that he might get back to flying. "He's a clever old drake, isn't he?"  
  
"Aye," Aegon smiled. "He might be old, but he's learnt a lot over the years. A hundred and sixty years of experience, and all they've done is made him as patient and steady as a statue. I don't think I've ever heard of him panicking, but I've never seen him in battle, either."  
  
"It'll be a sight to see what he can do, then," Taena smiled. "My own dragon was last in a battle before I was born. She's sixty three and not even a third the size of...what's his name?"  
  
"Blackfyre."  
  
"An impressive name for an impressive dragon," said Vaeherys, walking past with a smile. "He is something special, isn't he? Still..." Vaeherys' smile grew into an arrogant grin as he gestured towards his own dragon, no larger than Taena's...and yet something seemed off about it's grey and silver scales from where he was standing. "Had he been bred for war as my own dragon was, he would be larger still. It has taken generations of carefully managed breeding, going back  **centuries** " he boasted, "But my Greatflame is strong and fast, too, with keen eyes and he doesn't tire easily, either."  
  
Vaeherys raised his hand and his dragon immediately started to step forward with proud steps, holding its head up high as Vaeherys himself did, looking down on all of them with disdain.  
  
  
Then Aegon saw the dragon's middle, the light gleaming of of the heads of the round bolts of grey steel that looked as if they had been driven into the dragon's ribs, if not his lungs and heart...but had actually been used to fasten together over a dozen pieces of thick dragonbone into a suit of armour, holding together stacks of one piece atop of antoher and nailing them together to create a single, flexible piece of armour that hugged the dragon's own form, a wall of black bone that was as strong as steel and much lighter, too. The helm was the same - the skull of an even larger dragon that had been shaped and reshaped till it fitted Greatflame's own head - aside from two squares of Valyrian steel placed above the eyes, filled with as many holes as a sieve to let the beast see without losing protection of his greatest weak spot, whilst at the back of the helmet hung a long, rigid coif of the same dragonbone fastened into scales from old tailbones, gliding over one another with every moment the warbeast made.  _Gods, some dragons do things other than just fighting, we can use their flame to forge without needing any kind of wood or charcoal, and our sorcerers use crippled ones to make walls and roads with their magics, but not him...the only thing this dragon does is fight. That's all he does, and it'll be all he ever does till the day he dies._  
  
"Glorious, isn't he?" Vaeherys said with what could have only been genuine affection for his mount, walking over and putting his hand upon its armoured chest, Greatflame murmuring softly at his touch, just as Balerion had to Aegon. "Layer upon layer of dragonbone, held together by bolts of Valyrian steel to make sure they won't come apart in the midst of a fight. Even the best steel is just too heavy - the protection it gives is just not worth the weight - and Valyrian steel is simply too expensive to armour an entire mount with...but dragonbone, that is perfect for armouring a dragon. It's much lighter than normal steel and provides just as much protection, it can withstand great heat with ease, it is flexible and can be shaped without the need for sorcery...and if that wasn't enough, it is abundant throughout the entire Freehold, and easy to get ahold of."  
  
"How much did that all cost?" asked Taena with an intrigued look on her face. "It must've been a fortune to get so many workers to make all of it."   
  
_Dragonbone has the toughness of steel and can take a flame like it, but the only way to work it properly is with the same way you make chairs and tables. It's more like wood than not, despite it's strength._  
  
"Oh, it was," Vaeherys said with a proud nod. "Armouring dragons is nothing new. Adding scalemail to the same harness that the saddle has been mounted on has been around for years amongst the greatest of dragonlords...but no one has ever done it like this. This dragonbone comes from the ribs of mounts long dead, from dragons my family has flown for centuries. I doubt they would mind much, being allowed to fly and fight again rather than made to gather dust in some crypt under Qohor. It took days to fit it properly, but there is no gap behind these plates, only his scales, so there is no need to worry about the armour waving about as he moves or anything like that. No, all that will happen is that I will need to have some of the bones moved around and the measurements changed when my Greatflame grows all the greater."   
  
He turned to face the both of them. "When that happens, I suppose the parts that no longer fit Greatflame can be put on another dragon in my family, one that is old enough to have them but young enough for them to benefit from it."  
  
"That's just the start of a full set of armours, then, isn't it?" Aegon asked, curious and eager to know more, but unwilling to step closer towards Vaeherys' mount. "Once you've had enough pieces made and have enough of them in different sizes, you'll have enough of them to armour a dragon from the moment it hatches till the moment it dies."  
  
"Exactly," Vaeherys nodded again. "This is but the first, and it isn't even finished yet. It cost some quarter of a million gold dragons for just the ribs and the helm, but my father plans to have the wings protected, too, using bolts of Valyrian steel put into the bones themselves to affix dragonskin over the wings, so as to protect them from archers and scorpions. Maybe one day, centuries from now when we're all rotting in the ground, there might well be enough to cover a dragon as large as your Blackfyre with them."  
  
"Maybe even plates of Valyrian steel," Taena laughed.   
  
"Only the gods could hope to stop him then, since neither sword or flame could harm him," Vaeherys said with a small smile, friendly even. "My father is truly willing to spare no expense for me. There is nothing he would not do to keep his favorite son safe."  
  
"Citizen Targaryen," one of the sorcerers said with the deepest of bows. "Your father's dragon has been saddled, and yours will be done within a minute."  
  
Aegon smiled and nodded with understanding, the idea from before turning itself over and over in his mind. "Make sure to put Balerion's pack harness on, and Blackfyre's belly one, too. He's strong enough to carry all of my father's equipment and mine too, we might as well make use of that strength. "  
  
"Make sure to put Balerion's back harness on for when we arrive, and Blackfyre's belly one, too. I'm sure my father would want me to have my own equipment carried by my own dragon, but his mount is strong enough to take the rest of the weight."  
  
"As you command," the red wizard bowed again, then walked over to where a grumpy Balerion was waiting.   
  
"Wait," Vaeherys said with a laugh. "Your dragon is the small one? I thought the large one was yours?"  
  
"That's his father's," explained Taena, saying nothing more, fingering the grip of her sword incase things escalated.   
  
"What dragonrider with any measure of self-respect would take such a tiny dragon as his mount?"  
  
"One who has grown alongside her and would count her as a friend," Aegon carefully replied, thinking that his words were those his sister would have said. "Having a mount I can trust in battle to obey my commands is more important than having one that is strong...as I'm sure you know."  
  
"Very true!" Vaeherys laughed, then he looked towards his mount again and smiled fondly. "I can respect that. Better to have a friend than a beast...and though our friends might make mistakes from time to time, they never fail us when we need them most."  
  
"Aye," Aegon smiled back. "Blackfyre is a good dragon and strong, but I would ride my Balerion any day."  
  
"As would I rather have my Greatflame than my father's own mount. We've been through alot together, he and I," Vaeherys said with a sad smile as he climbed onto his dragon's back, putting his feet into the stirrup and fastening the clasps around his legs to hold him in properly.   
  
Immediately his dragon leapt into the skies, and just as quickly did it take off did a shadow descend over the entire camp, as if day had turned to night. Greatflame roared in surprise as a wall of black and brown passed over them, an ancient dragon near two hundred years old landing in the field where Rhaegon squealed in excitement and rushed over to it, laughing and grinning as he embraced the titan, as small as an ant in comparison. The old monster bellowed softly, his voice a deep and soothing sound...and Fieldfyre utterly dwarfed every other dragon in the campground, a third larger than even the mighty Blackfyre, who shied away from him, as did all the others, but even from where he was Aegon could see the shape of the dragon's ribs in his chest, the tell tale sign of a long time without much food.  _He's not as strong as he should be...but if he had been able to feed properly, he would have been truly gigantic. He was probably hunting for whales or dolphins in the Narrow Sea...or fishing boats..._  
  
"He found  _that_  monster in a field?" Taena said in surprise before bursting into laughter. "There mustn't have been much of a field left after that. I don't know how he managed to get him to listen to his commands, or how the dragon managed to bond with him in the first place, but if he managed to get something like that to do as he commands, then we might as well have him tell the Westerosi to surrender."  
  
Aegon laughed as he led his Balerion to Blackfyre, Rhaegon scrambling onto the back of his own dragon now that he had landed, looking as if he was crying tears of joy and relief, then, when Aegon had arrived in front of Blackfyre, the mighty dragon perking up at the sight of Balerion, he paused...and could resist the idea's allure no longer. He grabbed a rope, threading it through the hoop on Balerion's back, the dragon looking at him in confusion.  
  
Then he threw it through the matching hook on Blackfyre's belly, grabbing the other end and waving for help. Balerion flapped her wings and tried to retreat, quickly figuring out what he had planned, but by the time she managed to raise her wings and get more than a foot from the ground a dozen slaves had come over and taken the rope with him, hauling together and raising the little black dragon up against her will. She fought harder, and even more men rushed to aid them, slaves and sorcerers and even dragonlords, till she could match their strength no more and went limp, seeming to sigh and sulk as they tied the other end into a loop and a knot, using the last point on Blackfyre's saddle - one meant to hold a warchest of gold - to affix the two together. With the two dragons tied together, it became obvious just how much larger Blackfyre really was, Balerion barely even covering a quarter of his chest, only a tenth his size, if that, and could probably fit into Blackfyre's mouth whole. Making an expression that seemed all too much like a smile, Blackfyre lowered a wing for Aegon, letting him climb across the dragon's body and onto his back, feeling the dragon rising and falling with each and every breath he took, as if the very world itself was moving against his footsteps. Hot air rose from the black bulk beneath him, and every movement threatened to send him sliding off its sides to a death on the rocks below, but he carefully walked down the length of his spine, finally reaching the saddle not far behind Blackfyre's head. He knew how to ride, what to do, and yet despite his experience everything felt alien to him - this was not  _his_  dragon, even if he was allowed to ride him.   
  
_Well...enough dawdling._  
  
He sat in his father's place, slipping his feet in the stirrups and fastening the buckles around his thighs to make sure he wouldn't fall out if Blackfyre turned harder than he expected...but such a protection came at a price, as it made it impossible to unfasten oneself quickly whenever it was needed. Should a dragon die over the ocean whilst their rider is fastened to them, it would be impossible to free themselves before the dragon hits the water...and sinks under it. Still, it was always better to have them done than not, else he risk getting killed, so he did them as tight as he could bare.  
  
"And now we ride," he muttered to himself, pulling on a rein that tugged against the base of Blackfyre's head and urging him upwards, into the skies, then urging him to go left with another, opposite the way a horse might move.  _A dragon is always on the attack and never on the defense. Horses run from their enemies, but dragons turn to fight them._  
  
Immediately, dozens more dragons leapt into the skies to follow his lead as he tipped Blackfyre's wings about to face the harbour, Balerion sulking beneath, flying past as the great invasion fleet began to depart for the shores of the Seven Kingdoms.   
  


****  
**End of Part 1**  


_Word from the Author : Normally I put my summaries and such into the notes, but these are so big they have to go into the main story part itself. Just skip past them if you're not interested, it's mostly stuff about how Valyria is organized politically._

Alright, so this series is exactly what it says : what if Valyria invaded Westeros? 

Well, that was a short summary! 

But seriously, a Valyrian invasion of Westeros has always been a scenario I've been interested in writing, and this is the first-half of the first part of it. While we don't know all that much about how the Freehold works, I've tried to fill in the gaps as best as I can, using pieces of Rome and my own ideas based on what we do know. For the purpose of this series - and probably all of my stories - Valyria is a republic where there are three main classes of citizen, listed below in order.

The Lords Freeholder - These are the highest class of Valyrian citizen, and every family of them has at least a single dragonrider - whilst having a dragon isn't actually a requirement to become a Lord Freeholder, it's so prestigious and so important that it might as well be - whilst most have multiple dragons of their own, with the greatest families having dozens of dragons to themselves, usually keeping their entire family at Valyria to be closer to the reins of power. Lords Freeholder are men like Gaemon Targaryen, people who are the heads of these dragon holding families and are dragonriders themselves, holding a great amount of property from which to draw an income. These are the only people who can become one of the three Triarchs of Valyria, the heads of Valyrian government, assuming they have been elected by the other Lords Freeholder, but that's only the highest office that they can run for - many Lords Freeholders are also the reigning governors of the various Free Cities, or the dejure rulers of those which haven't yet been granted self rule. Every single Lord Freeholder has a say in Valyrian government, and can bring forth issues to be discussed by the Freehold, and every single Lord Freeholder has a vote about how these issues should be implemented, whilst the Triarchs themselves are tasked with carrying out what has been discussed. 

By this manner, Valyria's powers are separated - the Triarchs are the executive, the Freeholders are the legislative and the magisters - elected officials drawn from the common Freeholders and who I'll be covering later - are the judicial. 

Because of the democratic nature of Valyrian politics, the Lords Freeholder are organized into various factions based on common interests, working together as a single force to have a stronger voice inside the Freehold and for their own mutual gain. In this case, Gaemon and the Targaryens are a part of the Militarist faction - the direct predecessor of Volantis' own Tiger party - an aggressive organization that favors matters of a military nature, encouraging growth of Valyria's standing armies and the expansion of the Freehold by the sword. They're also fairly conservative on most matters, bringing them into a natural alliance with the religious faction - who are...temperamental, depending on what they believe the omens are - and are on the opposites of the civic - basically populist faction, one that invests most into the Freehold's internal organs rather than dealing with external matters, building aqueducts and roads and so on - and the mercantile faction, both of which are the direct ancestors of the elephant party of Volantis. In addition, Valyrian steel weapons are relatively common amongst these families, with each family having two or three, and the greatest of them no more than six.

Anyway, onto the next class of Valyrians 

Freeholders - these are the middle class of Valyrian citizens, those Valyrian citizens who have some lands but aren't rich enough and don't have enough property to be Lords Freeholder, lacking dragons. These are patricians, skilled craftsmen, longtime serving men and civil servants, judges and teachers, the Valyrian middle class in both power and income. Any citizen of Valyria who owns lands is a Freeholder, and has a vote for use in the local elections - so they can vote for the town mayor and other city officials and can run for such offices, too, but they can't run for higher level offices such as those of a city governor, but they can vote for any candidate of their choice. To become a Freeholder, all you need to do is own a certain amount of property, but a shortcut you can take is to join the Valyrian army and serve your full tour, after which you will get a plot of land in the Essosi interior and become a Freeholder far quicker than someone who chose to buy up plots of land to become one, thus giving a way to encourage military service without active conscription or other such laws. 

It's also from the Freeholders that trials are organized, with there being thousands of Valyrian Freeholders who have been schooled in the art of law and act as lawyers, whilst the best (or those with the best connections and the most money) are elected by their fellows to the position of magister, a judge, though they would lose such responsibilities after Valyria's collapse following the Doom, the term instead becoming just another word for merchant prince.

This brings us to the last major class of Valyrian peoples...

The Free Citizen : These are people who have been born free and aren't slaves, but don't own substantial properties. These are unskilled laborers, the regular footmen in the Valyrian armies, servants and just about everyone who doesn't belong to the classes above and isn't a slave. These people often rent their homes from a Freeholder instead of owning them directly, though just as many of them own the land under their house and nothing more. As a Free Citizen, any man or woman is free to make their own way in the world, so long as they are capable of doing what it is they want to do, and even a dragonrider without lands is still referred to as a Free Citizen, or just Citizen for short. For people who read the Many Sons of Winter, the term should be familiar - Horonno Vaenyris is a Free Citizen, meaning he is of freebirth, but lacks any significant properties to speak of and is thus not a Freeholder. Free Citizens have the right to a trial and a whole lot more, but they can only vote for local elections of lower levels, like for magisters and so on.

They've got far, far more rights than any Westerosi citizen, that's for sure 

Anyway, there are a few other stratas of Valyrian society, but they're more or less insignificant in comparison to these: slaves - who are exactly as the title says - and citizens without full rights, a term given to states that are either allied to or protectorates of the Valyrian Freehold giving them the right to visit Valyrian cities, shop in Valyrian markets and so on, but without many of the privileges of full citizenhood.

The rest of Valyria's political structure should be clear from the part above, but if not, feel free to ask me and I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have!  

Anyway, as you can probably tell from the year and Elaena, the Aegon we see here is not Aegon the Conqueror...on the contrary, it's his great, great-grandfather, and Balerion...is tiny. Well, tiny by the standards she'll grow to later on  

Speaking of the Black Dread and dragons in general, from what we see of Dany's dragons, there is definitely the mental capacity for affection there, and for familiarity, and the way they treat her in turn shows that there is probably some sort of mother/fatherhood instinct present in them, a reason that they bond with their parents, which is the exact reason why Blackfyre cares for Balerion, and then you've got how Balerion loves Aegon and the reverse, too - they're close in the way, say, Robb Stark and Greywind were, or Ghost and Jon Snow. 

Then you've got Vaeherys, and his armored, warbred dragon. Armored dragons don't seem to be something particularly new; fastening a harness to a dragon is something that they already had to do to be able to put a saddle on the back without having to worry about said saddle sliding out of place, whilst the WOIAF shows Balerion wearing a [breastplate](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/images/d/d4/Aegon_on_Balerion.jpg), but I'd consider that apochyprhal by ASOIAF standards - it wasn't uncommon for artists in our own world to draw events in the past, but do so with the people there wearing the clothing of their own era, something that could have just as easily happened from the perspective of the in universe artists who did the book. 

Seven hells, that sounds confusing, but what we should take from it is that yes, Balerion did wear a form of armor, but not a full breastplate like that...and also, now that I take a look at that image, what the hell is Aegon wearing on his chest? He's got some kind of half-breastplate that ends with his ribs, then chainmail the rest of the way down. I mean...what?  Even worse is his lack of a helmet, but we're getting sidetracked there 

Anyway, in the case of Vaeherys' dragon, Greatflame, the armor it wears is based off of the principals behind splint armor, albeit on a much larger, much heavier scale. It's not particular complex, nor is it all inclusive, but it provides protection of all of the dragon's instant kill zones, and the helmet covers the head well enough that someone pulling a [Hobb the Hewer](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Hobb_the_Hewer) will find themselves getting absolutely wrecked very,  _ **very**_  fast, whilst the protection on the eyes shields the dragon against Meraxes style eyeshots. In addition to the armouring of the organs, that means that Greatflame can take an absolutely horrendous amount of punishment in a battle, and there is certainly no way to take him out with a single shot. Still, such protection is expensive - dragonbone, while abundant, is difficult to work on such a scale - and is thus very, very rare. Another thing is that Greatflame has been bred for war, and such a thing is easy enough to do - if an animal breeds and can fight, it's possible to breed it for war simply by finding those dragons that have the best traits necessary for fighting, ie, the hottest flame and the strongest scales for example, then breeding them with another dragon with the same traits. 

At this time, Westeros should already have the knowledge on how to breed horses to create stronger specimens, and Valyria is no exception. Thus, Greatflame and any other warbred dragons are going to be  _nasty_  sons of bitches when angry, since they were selectively bred for size, strength and above all, to be absolutely fucking  **furious**  when angry.

Oh, and we also see an embryonic version of the Red Faith!  The sorcerers of Valyria are, in my mind, the natural predecessors of the Red Faith, since both of them wield fire magics and seeing what [Melisandre did with Stannis life force](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Shadow_assassin), I don't think it is much of a stretch to say they use blood magic, too. However, at this time magic is not just alive and well in the world of ice and fire, but thriving, and so the fire sorcerers of Valyria are far more mighty than any red priest or priestess...and have the knowledge on how to properly care for dragons, and how to use a dragonhorn to its full potential. 

When Valyria collapsed and the Freehold shattered, the organization that managed and led the fire mages of Valyria survived in the various cities and in Volantis, turning inwards to look after itself and to sit out the conflicts that tore what was left of Valyria's legacy apart, passing their knowledge and doctrine from one generation to the next...but in time, the organization changed, and what was once a cult inside of it consumed the organization from within, eventually turning into the Red Faith.

Or atleast, that's my take on it anyway  At this time, the Red Faith is little more than a cult tolerated and accepted by the Valyrian Freehold, whilst many worship the gods of the Freehold, the Fourteen, a god for each of the Fourteen Flam

Alright, so this miniseries is exactly what it says : what if Valyria invaded Westeros?   
  
Well, that was a short summary!    
  
But seriously, a Valyrian invasion of Westeros has always been a scenario I've been interested in writing, and this is the first-half of the first part of it. While we don't know all that much about how the Freehold works, I've tried to fill in the gaps as best as I can, using pieces of Rome and my own ideas based on what we do know. For the purpose of this series - and probably all of my stories - Valyria is a republic where there are three main classes of citizen, listed below in order.  
  
The Lords Freeholder - These are the highest class of Valyrian citizen, and every family of them has at least a single dragonrider - whilst having a dragon isn't actually a requirement to become a Lord Freeholder, it's so prestigious and so important that it might as well be - whilst most have multiple dragons of their own, with the greatest families having dozens of dragons to themselves, usually keeping their entire family at Valyria to be closer to the reins of power. Lords Freeholder are men like Gaemon Targaryen, people who are the heads of these dragon holding families and are dragonriders themselves, holding a great amount of property from which to draw an income. These are the only people who can become one of the three Triarchs of Valyria, the heads of Valyrian government, assuming they have been elected by the other Lords Freeholder, but that's only the highest office that they can run for - many Lords Freeholders are also the reigning governors of the various Free Cities, or the dejure rulers of those which haven't yet been granted self rule. Every single Lord Freeholder has a say in Valyrian government, and can bring forth issues to be discussed by the Freehold, and every single Lord Freeholder has a vote about how these issues should be implemented, whilst the Triarchs themselves are tasked with carrying out what has been discussed.   
  
By this manner, Valyria's powers are separated - the Triarchs are the executive, the Freeholders are the legislative and the magisters - elected officials drawn from the common Freeholders and who I'll be covering later - are the judicial.   
  
Because of the democratic nature of Valyrian politics, the Lords Freeholder are organized into various factions based on common interests, working together as a single force to have a stronger voice inside the Freehold and for their own mutual gain. In this case, Gaemon and the Targaryens are a part of the Militarist faction - the direct predecessor of Volantis' own Tiger party - an aggressive organization that favors matters of a military nature, encouraging growth of Valyria's standing armies and the expansion of the Freehold by the sword. They're also fairly conservative on most matters, bringing them into a natural alliance with the religious faction - who are...temperamental, depending on what they believe the omens are - and are on the opposites of the civic - basically populist faction, one that invests most into the Freehold's internal organs rather than dealing with external matters, building aqueducts and roads and so on - and the mercantile faction, both of which are the direct ancestors of the elephant party of Volantis. In addition, Valyrian steel weapons are relatively common amongst these families, with each family having two or three, and the greatest of them no more than six.  
  
Anyway, onto the next class of Valyrians    
  
Freeholders - these are the middle class of Valyrian citizens, those Valyrian citizens who have some lands but aren't rich enough and don't have enough property to be Lords Freeholder, lacking dragons. These are patricians, skilled craftsmen, longtime serving men and civil servants, judges and teachers, the Valyrian middle class in both power and income. Any citizen of Valyria who owns lands is a Freeholder, and has a vote for use in the local elections - so they can vote for the town mayor and other city officials and can run for such offices, too, but they can't run for higher level offices such as those of a city governor, but they can vote for any candidate of their choice. To become a Freeholder, all you need to do is own a certain amount of property, but a shortcut you can take is to join the Valyrian army and serve your full tour, after which you will get a plot of land in the Essosi interior and become a Freeholder far quicker than someone who chose to buy up plots of land to become one, thus giving a way to encourage military service without active conscription or other such laws.   
  
It's also from the Freeholders that trials are organized, with there being thousands of Valyrian Freeholders who have been schooled in the art of law and act as lawyers, whilst the best (or those with the best connections and the most money) are elected by their fellows to the position of magister, a judge, though they would lose such responsibilities after Valyria's collapse following the Doom, the term instead becoming just another word for merchant prince.  
  
This brings us to the last major class of Valyrian peoples...  
  
The Free Citizen : These are people who have been born free and aren't slaves, but don't own substantial properties. These are unskilled laborers, the regular footmen in the Valyrian armies, servants and just about everyone who doesn't belong to the classes above and isn't a slave. These people often rent their homes from a Freeholder instead of owning them directly, though just as many of them own the land under their house and nothing more. As a Free Citizen, any man or woman is free to make their own way in the world, so long as they are capable of doing what it is they want to do, and even a dragonrider without lands is still referred to as a Free Citizen, or just Citizen for short. For people who read the Many Sons of Winter, the term should be familiar - Horonno Vaenyris is a Free Citizen, meaning he is of freebirth, but lacks any significant properties to speak of and is thus not a Freeholder. Free Citizens have the right to a trial and a whole lot more, but they can only vote for local elections of lower levels, like for magisters and so on.  
  
They've got far, far more rights than any Westerosi citizen, that's for sure    
  
Anyway, there are a few other stratas of Valyrian society, but they're more or less insignificant in comparison to these: slaves - who are exactly as the title says - and citizens without full rights, a term given to states that are either allied to or protectorates of the Valyrian Freehold giving them the right to visit Valyrian cities, shop in Valyrian markets and so on, but without many of the privileges of full citizenhood.  
  
The rest of Valyria's political structure should be clear from the part above, but if not, feel free to ask me and I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have!    
  
Anyway, as you can probably tell from the year and Elaena, the Aegon we see here is not Aegon the Conqueror...on the contrary, it's his great, great-grandfather, and Balerion...is tiny. Well, tiny by the standards she'll grow to later on    
  
Speaking of the Black Dread and dragons in general, from what we see of Dany's dragons, there is definitely the mental capacity for affection there, and for familiarity, and the way they treat her in turn shows that there is probably some sort of mother/fatherhood instinct present in them, a reason that they bond with their parents, which is the exact reason why Blackfyre cares for Balerion, and then you've got how Balerion loves Aegon and the reverse, too - they're close in the way, say, Robb Stark and Greywind were, or Ghost and Jon Snow.   
  
Then you've got Vaeherys, and his armored, warbred dragon. Armored dragons don't seem to be something particularly new; fastening a harness to a dragon is something that they already had to do to be able to put a saddle on the back without having to worry about said saddle sliding out of place, whilst the WOIAF shows Balerion wearing a  [breastplate](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/images/d/d4/Aegon_on_Balerion.jpg) , but I'd consider that apochyprhal by ASOIAF standards - it wasn't uncommon for artists in our own world to draw events in the past, but do so with the people there wearing the clothing of their own era, something that could have just as easily happened from the perspective of the in universe artists who did the book.   
  
Seven hells, that sounds confusing, but what we should take from it is that yes, Balerion did wear a form of armor, but not a full breastplate like that...and also, now that I take a look at that image, what the hell is Aegon wearing on his chest? He's got some kind of half-breastplate that ends with his ribs, then chainmail the rest of the way down. I mean...what?   Even worse is his lack of a helmet, but we're getting sidetracked there    
  
Anyway, in the case of Vaeherys' dragon, Greatflame, the armor it wears is based off of the principals behind splint armor, albeit on a much larger, much heavier scale. It's not particular complex, nor is it all inclusive, but it provides protection of all of the dragon's instant kill zones, and the helmet covers the head well enough that someone pulling a  [Hobb the Hewer](http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Hobb_the_Hewer)  will find themselves getting absolutely wrecked very,  _**very** _  fast, whilst the protection on the eyes shields the dragon against Meraxes style eyeshots. In addition to the armouring of the organs, that means that Greatflame can take an absolutely horrendous amount of punishment in a battle, and there is certainly no way to take him out with a single shot. Still, such protection is expensive - dragonbone, while abundant, is difficult to work on such a scale - and is thus very, very rare. Another thing is that Greatflame has been bred for war, and such a thing is easy enough to do - if an animal breeds and can fight, it's possible to breed it for war simply by finding those dragons that have the best traits necessary for fighting, ie, the hottest flame and the strongest scales for example, then breeding them with another dragon with the same traits.   
  
At this time, Westeros should already have the knowledge on how to breed horses to create stronger specimens, and Valyria is no exception. Thus, Greatflame and any other warbred dragons are going to be  _nasty_  sons of bitches when angry, since they were selectively bred for size, strength and above all, to be absolutely fucking  **furious**  when angry.  
  
Oh, and we also see an embryonic version of the Red Faith!   The sorcerers of Valyria are, in my mind, the natural predecessors of the Red Faith, since both of them wield fire magics and seeing what  [Melisandre did with Stannis life force](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Shadow_assassin) , I don't think it is much of a stretch to say they use blood magic, too. However, at this time magic is not just alive and well in the world of ice and fire, but thriving, and so the fire sorcerers of Valyria are far more mighty than any red priest or priestess...and have the knowledge on how to properly care for dragons, and how to use a dragonhorn to its full potential.   
  
When Valyria collapsed and the Freehold shattered, the organization that managed and led the fire mages of Valyria survived in the various cities and in Volantis, turning inwards to look after itself and to sit out the conflicts that tore what was left of Valyria's legacy apart, passing their knowledge and doctrine from one generation to the next...but in time, the organization changed, and what was once a cult inside of it consumed the organization from within, eventually turning into the Red Faith.  
  
Or atleast, that's my take on it anyway   At this time, the Red Faith is little more than a cult tolerated and accepted by the Valyrian Freehold, whilst many worship the gods of the Freehold, the Fourteen, a god for each of the Fourteen Flames.


	2. Gaemon I

****

Gaemon looked around in silence, seeing his soldiers making their final preparations for departure, walking through the neatly organized campgrounds with only Daemon and his own sword and armour to keep him safe from harm.  _But I need no more protection than that here, or elsewhere. Daemon is a skilled and brave fighter and an old friend, I would rather have him at my side than twenty other men, even after this campaign of conquest begins._  He had made sure to say his goodbyes to his sister-wife in person, as any dutiful husband should before going away - they had never been close together, no, but despite all of that he had tried to kindle a flame of passion in their marriage when it was still young, offering Daenys a bouquet of blue, red and golden roses on their wedding day, a thousand dragon's worth of flowers...but she cared little for romance and love, so obsessed with her prophecies was she, and despite his attempts to win her heart by memorizing elaborate poems and complex dances and learning about what she loved and even how to give her the most pleasure in the marriage bed...his hope to have a loving and happy marriage wilted and died, just as the roses had.  
  
He had almost entirely given up on the idea of romance after that, the two them sharing a bed only rarely, with his wife doing her part of the marriage to make a son and give him a wife to marry so that he could have sons and daughters of his own, but every now and then there was a moment, those rare times when perhaps another part of her gleamed through the prophecies and ravings of the future, a time when she was interested in him as a person and a husband, not as some puzzle to be solved, and that was enough to make sure he would never betray his wedding oaths. She had been like that earlier, offering him sincere goodbyes and well wishes before inviting him into her bed...and perhaps, if the gods were kind, she would still be that way when he came home again.  _Perhaps there might even be another little boy or girl waiting for me when I return. She's still young and healthy enough to bear children, and I think she might be wanting to have another, too._  The sweet thought brought a smile to his face; there truly was nothing that could make him happier than the thought of becoming a father again, but he had to set it aside. The war demanded his full attentions, he had to make sure that everything was ready and that the entire campaign would go off without a hitch.  
  
 _The Lords Freeholder, the militarists and the Triarchs themselves have placed all of their trust in me. I won't shirk my duties by ignoring the state of the men placed under my command._  
  
The campground was organized to perfection, with row after row of identically shaped and identically colored tents separated by neatly marked paths, standards flying high and proud. Everywhere he looked there were citizen-soldiers making their final preparations for landfall, inspecting their swords and sharpening them if need be, donning their helmets and readying their great tower shields. Ever since the second of the Ghiscari Wars, one that had almost been the end of the Freehold before it had truly begun, it had been the Valyrian way to learn about how their enemies fought, to take that knowledge and strength in and make it their own. In those days, the Freeholders of old had fought with axes of dragonglass, weapons that were fragile but so sharp that they could cleave a horse's head off with a single blow, but their discipline was poor, no match for the lockstep legions of the Ghiscari, and it was everything their dragons and the aid of the Sarnori could do to stop them from pushing into the Land of the Long Summer and onto Valyria itself. No, Valyria had managed to buy a peace with gold and silver that lasted for forty years after those battles...and in that time, they had hatched new dragons, raised new armies and perfected the art of steelworking, reforming their ill-trained rabble into a disciplined and effective fighting force that was more than a match for the Ghiscari phalanxes and their siege weapons.   
  
When the peace expired and the armies of Valyria took to the fields to reclaim their honor, it was the Ghiscari who had to offer a tribute of gold and silver at war's end, their lords and generals now treating the young Freehold no longer as an upstart to be squashed, but as the greatest threat their empire had ever faced, bickering amongst themselves like children fighting over toys all whilst the dragon sank his claws deeper into the ground and made the lands they took theirs.  _And now the Ghiscari are gone, but they had taught us a valuable lesson. Dragons cannot hold territory or fly in a storm, nor can they be everywhere at once. An army has to be able to stand strong with its footsoldiers alone, it cannot rely on its dragons the way a cripple does his crutches._  Now, serving in Valyria's armies was one of the few ways one could become a true Freeholder with lands of their own, whilst great fame and greater fortune awaited those who were dedicated enough to spend their entire lives fighting for the Freehold.  _Valyria has all the men of Essos ready to march in her armies, and tens of thousands choose to do so of their own free will, seeking glory, wealth, plunder and the chance to see distant lands._  
  
 _...but most of them just end up in garrisons near Essaria or Mereeen. Hardly the glorious posting they were looking for._  
  
"So here we are, old friend. It's taken months of planning, dozens of messages sent to Valyria and back again, but here we are, about to undertake the largest war of conquest since the fall of the Rhoyne," he smiled to himself as he turned to Daemon, his bodyguard and the man who would have the important task of seeing to the welfare and the spirits of the men during the coming conquest. "How is the morale of the men? Are they ready for the campaign?"  
  
"They're eager to fight, my lord," the seasoned warrior nodded. "They believe fortune and fame await them in Westeros, and that most of the fighting will be over and done with by the time winter comes again."  
  
"They aren't wrong," Gaemon said as he glanced at a group of men doing some last minute arms practice, hacking and slashing at one another with their swords and blocking any blows that landed with their tower shields. "Every man in this army will get their due once it ends; there is more than enough land to go around, and enough spoils, too. But campaigns can be long and hard, and many of these men have never seen battle before. Are you sure they are ready?"  
  
"Once the first battle's been won and the men taste victory, they'll come to want it again and again," Daemon reasoned. "They'll give their all, I can promise you that. The only issue on their minds now is about their pay."  
  
 _The warchest we were given isn't enough to do everything we needed, so I had to make careful cuts here and there on the things we don't need in order to get the things we do. The men aren't being paid as much as they might be in other campaigns, but they'll have as much loot as they can carry to make up for it._  
  
"That is a problem that is easy enough to solve. The Velaryons have already made the arrangements - they have gotten in touch with their old friends in the merchant faction, they promise us a good price for whatever we claim. So long as we manage to take the initiative and maintain it, we won't ever have to worry about coin."  
  
"Nor morale," Daemon quickly added.  
  
"Indeed. I only wish that the Freehold would give us more time to prepare, another week even," he sighed. "The campaign season has only just begun, and the ground is still soft and muddy from winter's thaw. Poor conditions for a march, even a short one."  
  
"Even worse conditions for the Westerosi and their horses," Daemon reassured. "They won't be able to build much momentum for their charge, not when their horses are sinking into the ground and getting stuck. The mud might make our marches harder and longer than they should be, but the Westerosi suffer more and to our advantage."  
  
 _Our scouts will have the same problem, but I have so many dragons I could send them and their riders out to make up for it. They won't like doing something so menial, but none of them would even think of disobeying their commander, not if it means their family receives a letter of complaint and another is sent to the Triarchs. No, they'll do what they are ordered, regardless of what they might think._  
  
He continued onwards, towards the head of the army where their best men were gathering for battle, seasoned warriors who had fought in a dozen battles before and would make up the core of his forces. "In truth, I am more concerned about the dragonlords coming with us," he sighed. "None of them have ever seen a sword wung in anger outside of a fighting pit before, some of them haven't even seen that. What do you think about them?"  
  
Even Daemon was uneasy when he replied. "I had hoped that we would have a few veteran riders from the Freehold, to keep the others calm for their first few battles and to show the others how to fight best, but they gave us only boys and girls, my lord...if one of them flees the field after a few harmless blows, it could start a rout. Gods help us then, for once the dragons flee the foot will quickly follow, it matters not if they are winning."  
  
Gaemon paused, then nodded after a moment's thought. "I will keep the eldest of them at my side and have them follow my lead, then. If the more mature dragonlords can hold steady in the face of combat, then there is a good chance the younger ones will follow."  
  
 _Or so I hope. No man can properly predict a rout. An army might break only after losing more than half of their number in combat, or my riders might break after a single one of them turns about and flees the field after his dragon was scratched._  
  
As he stepped across the border between the different sections of the compact, tightly laid out campground, it was immediately clear how much pride the men under his personal command took in their duties. Flying proudly in the winds above the tents were banners of gold on black, each bearing the symbol of the Valyrian Freehold; fourteen flames arranged in a circle, like a crown and like an egg, within which was a golden dragon with its wings unfurled as far as they could reach. Beneath the circle was a great letter, a single V, standing for the capital and the birthplace of his beloved Freehold, and the entire standard flew upon a pole made from fourteen rods bound together by golden rings, and at the peak stood a golden dragon, as great as the one flying on the cloth beneath. The tents were separated from the rest of the grounds by a quickly built - but no less protective - palisade, and the men were busily going about their final duties before the invasion's start, taking the tents down and packing them up for transport. Those who saw him saluted him with respect and bowed their heads before going back to work, focused on the task at hand and not on needless formalities.  _As they should be._  
  
"Lord Freeholder," an officer bowed his head and dutifully said as he walked over, the master of the camp and another man who had chosen for war to be his lifelong profession. "We are breaking camp, as ordered. A third of our forces have already embarked and another third are ready to do so. The Andals have broken their own camp and are boarding the fleet, but it's taking them a long time thanks to their steeds."  
  
"Good," he acknowledged with a nod before turning to the matter of their support troops. "I trust your men haven't had any issues with the Andals?"  
  
"No, my lord," the man smiled as Gaemon looked over his armour in silence. "They've spent most of the morning in prayer, asking the Seven to help them do what their cousins had done when they first crossed the Narrow Sea centuries ago. I don't think we will have any problems from them."  
  
Gaemon couldn't help but to smile at that. The Andal men they were taking across the Narrow Sea were as important as their dragons, if not more so, simply because of all the different roles they needed to fill. The hills of Andalos had long been a part of the Valyrian Freehold, if merely a colony at the fringes, and the people there were as familiar with High Valyrian as they were the Common Tongue, making them a perfect fit for the role of being interpreters. Then there was the widely known fact that the Andals were excellent horsemen, better riders than even the Valyrians - in the past, there were very few horses in the Valyrian peninsula...simply because dragons would descend from the skies and hunt them down, and if that was not enough a dragonrider was always uncomfortable on the back of a horse because of how differently the two beasts behaved.  _A dragon is a predator, a fighter by nature, there is not a dragon in the world that would turn away from a threat...but horses, they are prey. Their first instinct is to run, and they only ever fight as an act of last resort. Because of that, the animals handle differently, so it is almost impossible for a dragonlord to ever ride a horse properly. We have to use stallions, since they're the closest to a dragon's temperament, and the most familiar._  
  
 _But just as importantly, the Westerosi can't easily tell the difference between Andals born in Andalos and those born in Westeros...making it all the easier for us to put spies in their camps and in their fortresses. Even sieges become simpler, if we can get a dozen men inside their defenses and have them open the gates for us, or contact the defenders and spread distrust or better yet, incite a mutiny. But they are few in number, and I will have to use them carefully if I am to win this war...and I will need to keep an eye on them, incase they start to turn against us._  
  
"Where is the leader of the Andals? I would speak with him in person, and see what kind of man he is."  
  
The master of the camp stepped forth, walked past the palisade and then pointing towards the port, at a nearby ridge watching over the bay. "Over there, my lord."  
  
"Thank you," he nodded. "Continue as you were, citizen...?"  _I would know the names of the men placed under my command, if it is at all possible._  
  
The master of the camp returned his nod, then answered, "Aerion, my lord."  
  
 _An old name, and one that is easy to remember._  
  
Gaemon left Aerion to continue his works, turning about and leaving the camp's heart to go to the fringes at the coast. "The men are looking in good shape," he said quietly with another small smile as they passed the palisade again. "There was not a  _single_  flaw in his equipment."  
  
"More like a statue than a man," Daemon smiled.  
  
"If the gods are kind, the rest of our army will be just as disciplined."  
  
The sound of the main camp and all the other sounds that went with it, the shouts of men and the sharpening of steel, began to fade away as the two got closer to the beach, where the small town that supported his family's castle was founded...and thriving, thanks to all the men who were spending their coin in the taverns and brothels whilst gambling the rest away. The port stretched past the town's small stone walls, expanded and expanded again to meet the needs of the vast invasion fleet, and even from the edge of the main camp he could see his flagship in port, the ship that had been his father's before it had been his, a war galley with four decks and bristling with scorpions and catapults, with row upon row of long oars raised out of the water. Closer, leaning against the walls, was a clearing where there had once been a yard filled with siege weapons of a dozen different kinds, everything that might be needed to breach the walls of a Westerosi fortress without needing to risk the use of dragonfire destroying their prize.  _Still, there will be many occasions when we will be able to use our dragonmounts to resolve sieges without having to run the risk of ruining whatever it is we wish to take. Say what you might about Westerosi construction, their buildings aren't so flammable as to immediately burst into flames when we melt their walls and gates._  
  
Then, when he looked upon the ridge his Andal allies were waiting on, he saw a great round tent in the midst, surrounded by dozens of smaller tents already half packed, a campground filled with boisterous laughter and music, half-naked whores and the stench of ale. He looked towards Daemon, who shrugged, then he looked back towards the tent and continued on his way, not letting any of it bother him. The camp was far more chaotic than that of the main army, but there was a method to the madness; every tent and every ditch had been placed with a keen eye for defense and speedy movements, despite how they might have looked at first glance, and were this a battle he would have had no choice but to bring his dragons down upon it if he were to ever take the ridge without losing a thousand men in the process.  _It's easy to think that they are just barbaric savages, without cities and without art or any such things, but they are far more clever than we give them credit for._  
  
He looked back at Daemon, and saw his bodyguard and friend with his hand on the grip of his sword and not the pommel, ready to draw at a moment's notice. "There is no need for that here, Daemon. We are amongst allies. Diplomacy demands smiles and a trusting demeanour, not suspicion and hands braced for a fight."  
  
"As you will," Daemon sighed, taking his hand off of his sword and clearly uneasy about being surrounded by so many Andal men, his eyes turning towards one of them who had passed out in a ditch in front of the tent whilst still dressed in mail, his helmet filled with ale and letting his messy mane of golden blonde flow loose over his shoulders as he snored, cradling a greatsword as if it were his wife. "But I shan't pretend to like it."  
  
A large man, standing guard at the tent's flap, stepped aside to let him pass, a rush of hot, smoky air blowing out of the tent as he opened the flap for Gaemon to step inside, the air filling with laughter and the clanking of cups. Gaemon stepped through...and watched as a giant of a man, six and a half feet - if not a full seven - in height, massive muscles buried beneath wolf pelts and with a thick beard of auburn hair, cleaved the head off a wooden dummy with a single blow using a monstrous two handed axe, then kicked the head straight into the raging fire in the centre of the room, throwing his axe to a boy that could have only been his son before grabbing a cup of ale and walking across the tent to Gaemon, laughing lowly.   
  
"So you're the man taking us to Westeros, eh?" the Andal warlord asked in almost perfect Valyrian, towering over Gaemon and Daemon both.  
  
"That I am. I am Lord Freeholder Gaemon Targaryen, leader of this army as selected by the Triarchs..and I will be taking you to Westeros."  
  
The Andal laughed and grinned, the sound echoing off of the tents leather walls, but before he could reply his son said quickly, "And that's my father, Brynden the Bloodbeard, and he's an old arse as selected by the Seven."  
  
"Damn you, boy," his father glared with a mixture of anger and pride, "I put a spine in you, and I can take it  _out_  just as easily."  
  
His son laughed, drinking more ale and putting his hand up a woman's skirts as Brynden turned back to Gaemon, smiling. "I raised him well, I did."  
  
"The Father would be proud, I'm sure," Gaemon nodded.  
  
"Aye, he would!" Brynden grinned, "But not so proud as the Warrior will be, when this war gets started."  
  
"Then you won't have to wait long to make him proud," Gaemon replied carefully, "You'll be drinking in Westeros by noon. Are your men ready to fight?"  
  
Brynden laughed hard, as did his son and half the other men in the tent.   
  
"We're  _always_  ready for a fight," Brynden said, raising his cup. "So long as you keep the coin and ale coming, there's not an army in the world you need worry about...so long as you let us deal with the wolves when the time comes."  
  
"Wolves?"   
  
"Starks," Brynden answered lowly and with a bitter voice, the tent going quiet as he spoke. "Those damned Kings o' Winter. Doesn't matter about coin, then, I'll send them to their tree gods for free."  
  
"I don't expect a Valyrian like you to understand," said Brynden's son from across the room, leaning forward in his chair and matching Gaemon's eyes with his blue ones. "Theon the Wolf butchered thousands of us when he crossed the sea. Sacked Hugor's tomb, set his body on fire and took his crown to toss it to the waves."  
  
"Aye..." Brynden said seriously, all humor and softness leaving his voice. "Argos Sevenstar was a hero to us all, and one of my forefathers...and they didn't even have the decency to give him a burial, no, they lashed his corpse to a ship and dragged him behind their horses as they raped Andalos."  
  
"I'm going to kill every last Northman I see, and I'll do it for free," Brynden said as his son handed him his axe again, the Andal warlord flipping it over to show Gaemon where a severed direwolf's head had been hammered and etched into the iron, surrounded by a star with seven points.  
  
"I understand vengeance well enough," Gaemon said, looking to Brynden and all the other Andals in turn. "So long as you fight at our side and do as commanded, "  
  
"When this war is over and done, I will give Winterfell and all its peoples to you for a moon, to do with as you please. Sack the castle, raze it, execute the lot of them or have mercy, it'll be your choice what to do with them. I will even give you men to bring the walls down if you need them, and I promise you all this, so long as you serve Valyria with loyalty and do as I command."  
  
The tent was silent...and then Brynden grinned widely, putting an arm around Gaemon as if he were his brother and pulling him close. "I'll take those terms, and call them a bargain!"  
  
The men cheered, toasting and drinking as Brynden let go of him and sat in his seat besides the fire, reaching out to a chicken cooking above and ripping a leg straight from it with his hand and nothing but. "Sit with me," he took his axe with one hand, and tapped the axe head upon another seat, a simple wooden chair covered in furs to make it comfortable. "It'd be impolite to refuse."  
  
Gaemon smiled and sat down, Daemon standing besides him till Gaemon gestured with a nod of his head for him to take one of his own. "Will you be as willing to fight other Andals? Half of Westeros keeps the Seven just as you do, and have knights, too."  
  
"We knew we'd be fighting other Andals since we got here," Brynden said, then he shrugged his great shoulders. "We've killed other Andals in  _Andalos_  itself, killing Andals in Westeros won't make much of a change. Keep the coin coming, and we'll keep killing."  
  
"As for knights..." Brynden chuckled, smiling as he revealed his left shoulder, a seven sided star burnt onto the rippling muscles. "It's one thing to say a vow in front of an alter, another to mean it. They might keep the same faith as we do, but they're no true knights. Killing them means just as much to the Seven as killing a Northman. Might be righteous," he ripped into the chicken piece, grease dripping into his beard as he chewed and swallowed. "The Father doesn't like those who don't take their oaths seriously. Especially those made in a sept."  
  
"You have nothing to fear about oathbreaking from Valyria," Gaemon nodded. "We have always upheld our bargains to the letter and never less."  
  
"Aye, you have," Brynden smiled widely. "I give you my word, as a godly man, we won't raise arms against Valyrians or anyone you feel like telling us not to kill. But I tell you now," his voice turned stern, "I can't promise that my men will be able to hold themselves back if yours start killing septons and... _other_  such things. It's one thing to kill knights claiming that First Night o' theirs, another to kill a septon because he hadn't managed to hide in time or to have one's way with a Silent Sister. Have your men do it out of sight and tell them to keep damn quiet about it, and we won't have any troubles."  
  
"No man can keep an eye on all of his men," he said truthfully, "But I will have those near me refrain from doing such things, if at all possible."  
  
Brynden smiled again, grateful, then he looked around the tent, searching for someone before looking at his son. "Sandor, where in the Father's name is your uncle? He's meant to be here."  
  
"He went to get a drink," Sandor shrugged the shoulders he had so clearly inherited from his father.  
  
"And you  _let_  him?" Brynden sighed. "You know that once he has one drink, he has a dozen more. Go find him, search the entire island if you must."  
  
Sandor looked ready to argue, but a single glare from his father made him back down and walk out, chainmail rattling beneath his furs.   
  
"He manages our supplies," Brynden explained as his son left, "He'll know if we're ready to sail or not."  
  
"You let a drunkard manage your supplies? Why?" asked Daemon, stunned.  
  
"Because his sister has a nice arse and hair as gold and smooth as honey," Brynden answered quickly. "But truly, he might be in his cups more often than he's out of them, but I haven't met a man who can count as good as he. I let him keep track of our baggage train because of it, but that doesn't mean I don't keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't drink himself to death."  
  
"Is that why he's drunk now?" asked Gaemon.  
  
Brynden laughed, and then he heard the tent flap open again...and in stepped in the man who had been asleep in the ditch outside of the tent, staggering as he walked and using his greatsword for support, Sandor standing at his side and ready to catch him should he fall. He blinked quickly as his eyes adjusted to the light, then he looked at Brynden sadly, muttering an apology under his ale sodden breath, though his goodbrother only sighed in annoyance, throwing his chicken to a black and white dog lying in the corner without once breaking his gaze.  
  
"Andar," he started with a quiet voice that made the air feel cold. "Are we ready to sail?"  
  
"Aye," his goodbrother nodded quickly, grinning. "We 'ad it all done in an hour, so I had a few cups with the men...it was a  _reward_ , for getting it done so fast."  
  
"Or so you say," Brynden muttered quietly as he rose, Gaemon rising with him and Daemon in turn. "When we're in Westeros, you'll only be drinking wherever I can see you, Andar."  
  
"But -"  
  
"If you get yourself killed on this campaign, it'll be  **your**  own damn fault, but your sister would blame  _me_  and  _never_  live it down. For Seven's sake, no more drinking when I'm not around."  
  
Andar sighed...and then he nodded, looking towards the ground in shame.   
  
Brynden took his axe and held it over his shoulder with one hand, gesturing with the other to the tent. "Strike the tent and break camp. We're leaving," he turned to Gaemon, bowing his head in respect, "We'll be on the ships by the time you order the fleet to set sail."  
  
 _And a good thing, too. His men will be our eyes and our ears in Westeros, I doubt it would be possible for us to do much conquering without them._  
  
"Then I will see you again when we land," he said with a nod, turning and walking out of the tent and into the cool air of the shore once again before turning his attentions to his bodyguard and speaking quietly as they left the Andal camp. "That went better than I had expected."  
  
"How so, my lord?"  
  
"They're more than willing to fight the Westerosi. Against the south they will do as commanded, and there is nothing that could make them happier than to be let loose against the Northmen, or so it seems."  
  
Daemon nodded quickly, understanding. "There is little chance of them going over to the enemy, then. So long as we keep the damage to the septs to the minimum and avoid offending them, there is no reason for us to fear losing them to the enemy."  
  
"Indeed...but that's where we run into problems," he sighed. "Our armies are promised plunder, that's how they'll be paid, and despite the Seven Sided Star preaching humility...the septs of Westeros are where the greatest part of their wealth is, easily taken by any man who is willing to take it."  
  
"To make things worse, the Westerosi have holy orders, men sworn to fight in the name of their gods, knights to a man. They will be the hardest enemy for us to defeat, the ones that will fight the hardest and give us the most wounded. Any man would want to take vengeance against them, and the quickest way to do so is to attack that which they are sworn to protect. The Faith."  
  
"It'll take all of our skill to balance, but I believe it could be done, if we -"  
  
A man, a Valyrian with his silver hair cut short and a courier from the look of his boiled leathers, ran up to Gaemon with a letter in hand. "My lord! A letter from the Freehold!" he said between hard pants of breath. "It only just arrived, and was the last to give."  
  
Gaemon nodded, taking it from the courier. The parchment had been wrapped in leather to protect it from the elements on its voyage, quickly discarded now that it's duty was done, revealing a single piece of parchment with his full titles written on the front and sealed with a wax crest of black and gold, the standard of the Freehold made small.  _There is only one thing that this could mean._  He took the dagger from his belt and snapped the seal before returning it to its sheath, flipping it open and reading the contents as quickly as his eyes could take it in.  
  
 _To the Honorable and Loyal Lord Freeholder Gaemon Targaryen, Freeborn Citizen and Dragonrider,_  
  
 _By the collected will of the duly elected Triarchs of Valyria and the Freeholders and Lords Freeholder that they represent, it has been unanimously decided to grant upon you the title and responsibilities of Exarch of Westeros, to fully acknowledge your role as general._  
  
 _Though your duties will take you and your command far from the territories of the Freehold and into lands as yet unconquered, it is with pride that we state that you carry the belief and hope of all Valyrians with you, and that the Freehold in its entirety will be watching you go forth, certain in the knowledge that you are capable of meeting any and every challenge presented to you. As such, you should not consider the title nor its responsibility to be endured, but as an acknowledgement to be proud of, a recognition of your worth, and a promise that you will be duly rewarded at campaign's end._  
  
 _In addition to the tasks of an exarch and the post as supreme commander of all forces on land, on sea and in the skies of Westeros, we also give you the responsibility of founding a new settlement, a port from which the wealth of the new territories might flow back to Valyria and the rest of the Freehold, a land which will, in time, become your own seat in the lands of the Sunset Kingdoms. To aid in this task, a company of engineers, architects and city planners have been sent to accompany you and will arrive with this letter, given the task of ensuring that the new settlement is found to be up to the standards set by the great cities of the Essosi territories._  
  
 _Finally, with the matter of reinforcements proving to the most pressing, Lord Freeholder Aurion Qoharion of Qohor has seen fit to raise the issue of declaring a war of conquest against all of Westeros - such is now under consideration, pending the results of your campaign come the end of summer._  
  
 _And once again, we would like to reiterate the statement that we will be watching your progress closely, and our hopes for a swift and decisive victory go with you._  
  
Below the final line were no goodbyes or names, merely three symbols arranged in a nearly perfect triangle, the crests of all three Triarchs stamped onto the paper, bearing the marks of the three factions they came from and with another symbol between them all, faded and marked not with ink but with water, to prove its authenticity.   
  
Then he swallowed, taking in the words and everything they meant...they were as much a threat as not, that was certain, as written between the lines was the knowledge that not only were they watching for his success, but his failure too, and that as great as the reward for success would be, the punishment for failure would be worse a hundred fold.  _It wouldn't be me alone they would go after...but my entire family, too. All of house Targaryen would be held liable. We could even lose our titles as Lords Freeholder...but if we prevail...we will become one of the greatest families of the Lords Freeholder, with a city to call our own._  He had known ever since he had been given the warchest and the task of rallying the army that he was going to be declared Exarch, every Valyrian who had ever led an offensive war had that title; it gave him unlimited authority in all territories within the scope of the campaign, free rein to do whatever he willed so long as Valyria got results.   
  
It was a title that ignored elections and the will of the people, the rarest thing inside Valyria, and giving him the ability to enact conscription and to appropriate property with nothing more than a promise to return it at the end of his time as exarch...though such powers would prove useless in a land yet to be conquered. But above all other things, it was the responsibility of founding a city that was at the forefront of his mind.  _Being an exarch is something I had expected, but being ordered to found a city, too? That's a task better suited to my father...he raised Dragonstone, after all, I am sure he could raise a city given the means and the time...but I will do as they command, to the best of my ability._  
  
 _House Targaryen will have its city, and I will make it an equal to any in Essos if I can._  
  
He smiled, wrapping the letter back up inside its leathers and keeping it in his hand. "Thank you," he said to the courier before pointing towards the castle. "Go to Dragonstone and rest, the servants will find you a warm bed and a hot meal."  
  
"Thank you, my lord," the man bowed his head deeply, still tired, and set off at a far more leisurely pace than before.  
  
"What is the letter, my lord? Your appointment?" Daemon asked as soon as the courier was away.  
  
"You are correct," Gaemon answered lowly, still taking it in himself. "That and so much more. I will tell you the rest as we sail."   
  
Daemon nodded in silent understanding as the two men traveled to the port of Dragonstone, the wharves filled with galleys beyond counting, some were built to carry goods and supplies, others made to carry men and steeds, fewer still were those floating fortresses which had been built for war and sent to protect the invasion fleet, in case the Westerosi found out and were sailing to catch them whilst at sea or whilst they were still offloading men. Almost all of the ships carried the crest of the Valyrian navy upon their bow, with the black and red sails of the Targaryen's own fleet lost amidst the wooden wall, just another part of the titanic navy that would soon be heading for war.  _Once the fleet arrives and the army makes landfall, most of the ships will be turning their oars back to Volantis, with some few of the transports staying as treasure galleys...but the warships, they will be heading north to Gulltown, to watch the Arryns and make sure the fleet stays in harbor. This invasion will live and die on our control of the waves, so it is all the better to ensure that our enemies are locked in port till winter comes and freezes them in._    
  
Everywhere he looked there were sailors going around their business, working great wooden cranes that loaded crates of weapons by the dozen in great wooden pallets, easily lifted by their oxen and even easier to unpack by the crew for storage within...and it was becoming clear now that much of the work was almost done, the warehouses emptying one by one and the taverns too, the galley crews and the men who defended them from boarders - and the ever present risk of a slave revolt, a lesson learnt from the Braavosi - returning to their ships and taking up their posts. He turned about and walked towards his flagship, the  _Maelarion_ , named for the first Targaryen dragonlord. On her prow was a dragon of blackened steel, wings swept backwards along the hull, her greatest decoration and her greatest weapon, as there was nothing more lethal to a galley than to be rammed by another, larger warship...other than dragonfire, of course. Crowds parted for him and Daemon, slaves stepping aside and looking to the ground in fear  
  
Crowds parted for him and Daemon as they passed, slaves stepping aside and looking to the ground in fear, wary of whatever punishment he might give them for meeting his eyes - none, as he saw no reason to harm them for something so trivial, he much preferred the temptation of reward rather than the threat of pain to keep them motivated.   
  
A familiar voice called to him from the deck of the  _Maelarion_ , "Lord Freeholder, the ship is ready to sail...as for the fleet, they'll be ready to sail by the time we've made our way out of this mess," Jacaerys Velaryon laughed, waving towards the tightly packed harbor.  _There are no greater friends of my family than the Velaryons, and no better sailors than them, too. There couldn't be a better man to be the admiral of this fleet._  
  
"I'm sure you can get us out of port, Jace," Gaemon smiled as he walked up the ramp onto the  _Maelarion_ 's deck, finding his feet quickly as the ship bobbed up and down in the calm waters. "Otherwise, I might have to sail her myself."  
  
"Oh, I can get her out of port," Jacaerys nodded, "The only problem is getting her out of port before the waves turn against us and force us back into harbor."  
  
"I suppose by the time you have her back in it'll be time to set sail again."  
  
"There's no doubt about it," Jacaerys smiled, tapping his hands on the railing around the top of the ship's aft castle, standing tall and proud atop the quarterdeck. "She might be bigger than I'm used to, but I haven't a problem with big girls."  
  
"You make her seem as if she's the largest ship in the world," Gaemon said as he ascended the steps, meeting his friend at the top. The Velaryons might not have been Lords Freeholder, but it could be said that they ruled the Narrow Sea just as much as the Targaryens did. "Volantis like them even bigger."  
  
"Indeed they do! And if a Volantene war galley was here, we'd destroy our own fleet trying to sail out of harbor," Jacaerys japed, earning a laugh from the normally stoic Lord Freeholder. "I'm happy with the  _Maelarion_ , I have enough trouble keeping this fleet organized without having to worry about us smashing our way out of port."  
  
Jacaerys shouted down to the slavemaster in the holds as he took the wheel. "Get those oarsmen rowing, nice and slowly now."  
  
"I'll leave you to your work," Gaemon said with a nod, turning about and heading inside, to the   
  
Gaemon said with a nod, turning about and heading inside, stepping into a cabin that was larger than the one set aside for the captain or admiral - a room that had been added onto the ship simply because Gaemon's father had no taste for the seas and preferred to let his admirals and captains go about their duties without him. It was lavishly decorated, as befitting the chambers of a Lord Freeholder, with a large table in the midst of the room big enough to seat eight, one at the head and one at the opposite, with another three on either side, its sides carved with the history of the Freehold from its inception to its greatest glories and to the present day, and on the far side of the room was a desk and a chair, almost the same as the ones in his solar inside of Dragonstone's keep, indeed, with the soft bed in the corner and its sheets of velvet and feather filled pillows, the only thing missing from the room was a hearth to warm himself by...but there could be no hearth on any ship, for reasons obvious to all.   
  
 _For something that is always in the water and soaked by it, ships burn surprisingly easily._  
  
Slowly, the ship began to lurch forward just as he walked towards his desk, Daemon as silent as a shadow behind him, and just as quickly as the ship had began to move it stopped again with a dozen bangs in quick succession, like a hallway of doors being slammed shut, Jacaerys cursing the slavemaster as the  _Maelarion_  hit another galley.  
  
"I said  _slowly_  you whoreson!"  
  
Gaemon sighed as he sat in his chair, pulling one of the drawers open and slipping the letter inside before pouring himself a cup of wine as the invasion finally began.  
  
 _This will be a long voyage..._  
  


****  
 **End of Part 2!**  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The invasion force is now underway, with their sights set upon the mouth of the Blackwater Bay, one of the few places in Westeros with beaches big enough to support such a great landing and calm weather to let them stay organized - no fleet or army is more vulnerable than in the midst of a coastal invasion, since both of them are disorganized and both of them are in no state for a fight. 
> 
> And of course, we see the supreme commander of the invasion, Gaemon Targaryen, Aegon's father and newly entitled Exarch. Personality wise, he's like a softer version of Stannis, what he could have been had his mother and father lived, and Gaemon is slightly romantic in his own way, as shown by his hope to have had a loving marriage with Daenys, but dutiful and stoic, too. He certainly wants to be a good father to Aegon and Elaena, though his love for them doesn't often show, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist 
> 
> Anyway, the title of Exarch is a special Valyrian title that basically merged the idea of general and governor together, granting him unlimited authority in the territories inside the campaign - and I do mean unlimited, as he can outright bypass all electoral or democratic functions and overrule any legislation in effect to be replaced with his own decrees, though all this stops at the edge of the territories affected. In this case, that means that Gaemon has been bestowed unlimited power inside of Westeros, something that has limited effect because of the lack of a Valyrian presence there, but it basically means that the Triarchs and the Freeholders don't care what he does, so long as he gets results and succeeds. Everything else about that should be clear from the part above 
> 
> Moving on, the Valyrian armies are strong and disciplined in addition to being supported by siege weapons, though they lack specialist functions like heavy cavalry, archers and so on - such things are made up for by the inclusion of auxiliaries from allied realms and Valyrian protectorates, like Andalos. Their use of disciplined infantry formations is a direct response to the Ghiscari's own formations, which from all descriptions are phalanxes, and the learnt lesson that dragons simply cannot hold territory without infantry support...but whereas the Ghiscari uses phalanx formations, the Valyrians use something more reminiscent of the Roman legions, marching in checkerboards and so on. 
> 
> The hypothetical ideal battleground for Valyria, the one that would give them the highest odds of winning, then, is an open field with good calm weather and in broad daylight, which would let both their infantry formation and their dragons work together to absolutely devastating effect. In such a perfect case, the Valyrians would be supported by their Andal soldiers on the flanks and in the reserve, as a strong mobile force to be brought in wherever and whenever they are needed, whilst dragons harry and strafe to break up the enemy formations and make them easy prey for the ground forces.
> 
> Speaking of their support troops, we also see a group of Andals led by Brynden, a man somewhere between Robert Baratheon and Gregor Clegane in stature and a fierce fighter. Whilst these Andals might seem more savage than their Westerosi cousins, they keep castles of their own in Andalos, and have knights and ladies, too, with a strong cavalry tradition and knowledge of both the Common Tongue and High Valyrian being common amongst many of them. They're one of Valyria's most valuable allies, even if the Andals often fight amongst themselves, and are given special privileges to trade in the Valyrian cities in return for their service as horsemen, scouts and interpreters. They'll be filling those vital roles in Essos, if all goes according to plan, giving the Valyrian forces a means to properly communicate with the Westerosi, as well as a way to infiltrate their fortresses and a means to screen the main army during its advance.
> 
> And on the topic of fortresses, one of the responsibilities that Gaemon has been given is the construction of a port
> 
> one of the greatest responsibilities that Gaemon has been given is the construction of a port, a coastal city from which the wealth of a conquered Westeros can flow to Valyria and the rest of the Freehold...I wonder what that city could be With the addition of architects, engineers and city planners, the King's Landing of this world will be a different beast than the one of canon; it will have all the knowledge of Valyrian engineering used in construction, giving it sewers, aqueducts and bathhouses, all of which combined together will mean that the famous stench of the capital will probably not exist in this world 
> 
> As usual, if you have any questions, feel free to ask!


End file.
